They say if you ask an avid reader what their favorite book is, they won’t be able to give you an answer. How can we choose? There are so many great books. New ones coming out on the regular. To ask us to choose one out of the many is like asking which of our kids is our favorite.
It’s unfathomable.
Nearly.
Now I don’t have kids, but I have read a good deal of books. And I do have a favorite. Gasp! That being, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. However, coming in right behind that is The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.
I first read The Golem and the Jinni in September 2016, and here it is now 2023 and it still remains in my top 5, all-time favorite books.
At the end of 2022 I decided to reread The Golem and the Jinni. It was just as wonderful as I remembered, and the perfect way to end my 2022 GoodReads Challenge. And it also meant I was finally ready to venture into its sequel, The Hidden Palace.
I’ll admit to being both excited, and apprehensive to find many years after reading the first novel, that there was a sequel. The first novel was so amazing, could a sequel live up to the predecessor? I know books have a better run at doing so than movies, but still, I was nervous.
The Golem and the Jinni was published on April 1st, 2013. The Hidden Palace would be published eight years later, on June 8th, 2021. Eight years is a long time between novels nowadays, although some go longer in-between publications. Looking at you George R.R. Martin.
However, I finally did crack open the spine of The Hidden Palace at the start of 2023, and instantly all the apprehension washed away.
It was the sequel I didn’t think was needed, but everything I wanted.
The Golem and the Jinni – Synopsis
Helene Wecker’s dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.
Struggling to make their way in this strange new place, the Golem and the Jinni try to fit in with their neighbors while masking their true natures. Surrounding them is a community of immigrants: the coffeehouse owner Maryam Faddoul, a pillar of wisdom and support for her Syrian neighbors; the solitary ice cream maker Saleh, a damaged man cursed by tragedy; the kind and caring Rabbi Meyer and his beleaguered nephew, Michael, whose Sheltering House receives newly arrived Jewish men; the adventurous young socialite Sophia Winston; and the enigmatic Joseph School, a dangerous man driven by ferocious ambition and esoteric wisdom.
Meeting by chance, the two creatures become unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures, until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful menace will soon bring the Golem and the Jinni together again, threatening their existence and forcing them make a fateful choice.
Marvelous and compulsively readable. The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of folk mythology, historical fiction, and magical fable into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.
The Golem and the Jinni (inside flap) by Helene Wecker.
What I Loved
Absolutely everything.
This is no exaggeration. There is a reason this book has remained amongst my favorites. It is a good book. It’s a damn good book. As you can tell from the image below, I’ve felt this way about this book since I first read it in 2016.
This book is unique. The characters are like none I’ve ever read before and for the most part that still rings true. Authors are breaking more and more molds, but Chava and Ahmad stand apart.
I know this may seem more of a love-fest versus book review, but this is my review. These are my honest and true feelings.
The storytelling was top tier. How Wecker weaves the lives and threads of her characters not just into each other’s lives, but to the bigger story at play…it’s almost hard to believe this is the author’s debut novel.
She is a phenomenal storyteller.
The research alone that must’ve went into this book, is just more evidence to this author’s passion and dedication to this story and craft. The details that we get about the life in 1899 New York, the communities, the day to day goings…she writes it all so well it’s like you’ve stepped into a historical film. She paints the lives of these characters and their world with such vibrancy and detail…
I love it so much I’ve told it to nearly anyone I can get to listen to me, and I’ve given a copy to a friend to spread the love as it were.
I cannot praise it enough.
And in case you were wondering, there isn’t going to be a “What I Didn’t Love” section.
I gave The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Due to the nature of it being a double feature, the Synopsis of The Hidden Palace may contain mild spoilers. So if you you were plenty intrigued by the what you read above, and don’t want any possible spoilers—LEAVE NOW—I will not be offended. Though not into much detail, the Synopsis does contain and allude to details that may have transpired in The Golem and the Jinni.
You have been WARNED!
Last chance.
Still here? You know what you’re doing.
The Hidden Palace – Synopsis
Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human—just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined—but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.
Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who’s been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele—not knowing that she’s about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.
Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart—especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?
The Hidden Palace (inside flap) by Helene Wecker
What I Loved
Honestly, what I loved most was that this was a surprise.
I had no idea the author was ever going to write a second novel with Chava and Ahmad.
The Golem and the Jinni was written so well, and the ending was so neat, that it never occurred to me that there would be a sequel. I knew it was her debut novel, but a lot of authors can just write a novel in one universe and the next book if they write again is something totally different.
But here I was, walking down the middle isle of my local Barnes & Noble, and sitting on one of the tables among other books under a sign I cannot recall, was a cover that caught my eye. Not because it was a gorgeous cover, which it was, but because it looked so familiar. The colors were different, but it immediately triggered my memory.
Before I even picked it up, I told Paul, “Hey, this looks like the cover of The Golem and the Jinni.” And then I did pick it up, and my jaw dropped. “There’s a sequel?!”
I cannot recall why exactly I did not walk out with the book right then and there. I’m assuming it’s due to the fact that I had a First Edition hardback copy of The Golem and the Jinni, and the one in store was a paperback.
I’m one of those weirdos where I hate it when sequels or series change in height on my bookshelves. It irks me.
But I did not have to wait long to receive my copy.
Paul found me yet another First Edition hardback copy. Don’t they look gorgeous!!
Did The Golem and the Jinni need a sequel? No. It could’ve been a solo novel and been just fine. If you never read The Hidden Palace, reading The Golem and the Jinni will leave you feeling fulfilled. It is a complete novel.
Now, will you love and enjoy being back in that world if you do read The Hidden Palace? I would put money on, yes, yes you will.
The second novel goes more into the relationship of Chava and Ahmad and in turn their relationships with the community around them. Like the synopsis says, these are two very different creatures. And I think Wecker does a superb job of demonstrating how we are the creatures we are. Yet, we can all be influenced and affected by our environments and the people around us. Do we fight that change? Do we embrace it?
Without going into more detail I will say this about The Hidden Palace: It’s the sequel that wasn’t needed, but very much deserved.
I gave The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
In Conclusion
Wether it be at your local library, Amazon, a local bookseller, whatever it may be, I encourage you to pick up The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. And if you love it as much as I did, you will not be disappointed in The Hidden Palace.
Until Next Time,
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