Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Of all the myriad races of thinking creatures in the world, the two that most delight in telling stories are the flesh-and-blood humans and the long-lived, fiery jinn.”

The Hidden Palace (The Golem & The Jinni, #2) by Helene Wecker

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I’m having a hard time reviewing this one, mostly because I had a hard time deciding what I thought about it. But I’m on the verge of getting hopelessly behind in reviews again, so it’s time to buckle down and figure it out. I was thinking about the book this morning and I think I’ve finally formed some solid opinions, so here we go. This is a book about change in all its forms: death (and grief), destruction, creation, evolution, the way a person changes […]

A book I loved years ago is still great on re-read.

The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1) by Helene Wecker

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This was just as good the second time. Not going to do a whole huge review because I’m tired, and I’d rather be reading the sequel instead of writing things. I still think this is an absolutely lovely portrayal of the immigrant experience, both in the way it portrays actual historical immigrant communities (particularly Little Syria and the Jewish communities in NYC) and in the way that Wecker uses the outsized fantastical experiences of the golem and the jinni (Chava and Ahmad, as they become […]

Drop-kick That Magic Lamp into Mount Doom

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin (editors)

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Short story collections are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you have to gnaw some nuts and chews to eventually find that chocolate truffle. That said, The Djinn Falls in Love is phenomenal. Six of the twenty-one stories are among the best short stories I have read. Ever. (Jhumpa Lahiri, I’m sorry to report that you’ve been bumped.)  The editors’s international ensemble of authors clearly did their research, populating their confident tales with every manner of djinn, jinn, and genie. Some lie in wait in […]

Episode 1-31: Just the Beasts Under Your Bed, In Your Closet, In Your Head

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https://killingmykindle.com/2018/08/27/episode-1-31-just-the-beasts-under-your-bed-in-your-closet-in-your-head/ Wherein I review: 119. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker 120. Serpentine (Anita Blake #26) by Laurell K. Hamilton 121. The Sellout by Paul Beatty 122. Turtles All The Way Down by John Green 123. Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet 124. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames 125. The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp Helene Wecker gives us a historical love story between two servant myths. Laurell K. Hamilton comes back and sets Anita Blake against […]

How to not annoy while moralizing with folklore

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I’d seen this book around, and I knew it had gotten some good reviews and won some awards. I wasn’t in much of a rush to get to it, but then I realized it would be a good fit for a final project in a Myth and Folklore in Literature class that I have coming up, starting in about a week, and I’m not about to put a book on a list of options for a final project unless I’ve read it myself. Reading project […]



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