seema wrote a review...
This is tough to say, but I was pretty disappointed in this book compared to the short story and novella prequels, which I quite enjoyed. The pacing was really imbalanced, quite slow for the first 80% (and painful, waiting for the MC detective to figure out things that were long obvious to me as the reader), and then a ton of action in the last few chapters. I thoroughly enjoyed the secondary characters, but the MC had somehow devolved in comparison to the prequels in my opinion, and became very unlikeable for her biases and treatment of others in a way where I am not convinced the author meant for that to be intentional as its own social commentary. I didn't feel her inquisitiveness or cleverness or effort, like I was more motivated and earnest than she was, and she was just standing in the way and stalling the plot. There were a lot of details that didn't really make sense to include or weren't followed through, and logical gaps strewn throughout where certain things just wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. The world building was definitely impressive, but even there I just wanted more follow through on concepts from the prequels. Maybe there's another book to come so some is being left for that? I was genuinely so excited for this book and eager to enjoy it, so it's definitely a bummer to have felt so frustrated by the majority of it.
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A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, #1)
P. Djèlí Clark
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seema commented on a post
Has anyone read the novellas? I finished this a little bit ago and have "The Haunting of Tram Car 015" on hold from the library. Are the novellas as unique and interesting as the novel?
Also, anyone read any of the other pieces by Clark? "The Dead Cat Tail Assassins" has been on my list for a while, and I think this book convinced me to finally read it.
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