The second book of The Golem and the Jinni, I enjoyed this one just as much as the first one! The story of this bizarre friendship (love story??) between a woman made of clay and a jinn trapped in a human body by a cuff of iron expands to include new characters, new friends, and maybe a frenemy, while revisiting the locals in Little Syria and an heiress who hides across the sea. I loved all the new characters and felt this follow up did great justice to our original story, which is not always the case in a sophomore effort. There really was more to this story!!! Honestly, I would totally pick up a third volume, and I read these two back to back with no issues or overload at all. Wecker shows her knowledge of and love for New York, introduces us to what life in the Middle East would have been like for a Western woman, mentions war and ships that sink and other historical events that are happening during these times, and once again has smoothly woven all of this into a novel like no other.
There is more Jewish heritage referenced here, and the struggle to keep one's traditions (and NAME) going in the face of ridicule and ignorance. There is the pull of the familiar and the necessity for change, hard as that change might be. But mostly in this story is the need for truth. The final truth at the end left my eyes a little damp, but I loved it all. Chava, Ahmad, Maryam, Sayeed, Sophia, Anna, Toby, Kreindel, Dima and Yoselle are characters, along with the city of New York in 1915 which was a character of its own, that I will not soon forget.
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