Flauschbuch reviewed A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (Dead Djinn Universe, #1)
I loved it
5 stars
I read the two short stories/novellas "A Dead Djinn in Cairo" and "The Haunting of Tram Car 015" before starting this book and I recommend doing that for more in-depth world-building and the reward of seeing the characters from those stories again in the book. This is a great urban fantasy book with a steampunk vibe. I rushed through it within two days because I found it so captivating. Clark makes this world come alive and it's such an interesting one. In also liked how the characters were so vivid, even minor ones. Individuality and identity is one of the major themes in this book and though it's perhaps not as deep as some other book it does provide food for thought. The other big theme to me was prejudice and I appreciated how it weren't just easily dismissable characters with obvious prejudices but that Fatma also got misled by …
I read the two short stories/novellas "A Dead Djinn in Cairo" and "The Haunting of Tram Car 015" before starting this book and I recommend doing that for more in-depth world-building and the reward of seeing the characters from those stories again in the book. This is a great urban fantasy book with a steampunk vibe. I rushed through it within two days because I found it so captivating. Clark makes this world come alive and it's such an interesting one. In also liked how the characters were so vivid, even minor ones. Individuality and identity is one of the major themes in this book and though it's perhaps not as deep as some other book it does provide food for thought. The other big theme to me was prejudice and I appreciated how it weren't just easily dismissable characters with obvious prejudices but that Fatma also got misled by her own prejudices and how it's an undercurrent of the society depicted in this book. There's also an appearance of a historical character I was secretly hoping for and which is much more expansive than I could have hoped for.