When we visited Granada, Spain we spent some time walking through the beautiful Alhambra fortress and the Old Town nearby. Because of this familiarity with the location I selected this book, set (at first) in the same fortress and telling the tale of a palace concubine of the last sultan, on the run from the very creepy Spanish inquisition.
The book has plenty of exotic locales, and with magic weaved into the story there are certainly some surprises and interesting situations. The writing style for me was a bit too flowery but the descriptions of the countryside and ocean were really well done. Especially interesting characters were the various jinn who live somewhere between the real world and hell – and their unique way of speaking and understanding their nature while others are oblivious.
Despite these good points, overall I didn’t really enjoy the book as much as I had expected to. A couple of reasons: characters I couldn’t relate to, a somewhat derivative plot, and unclear motivations of the main characters.
The two main characters of this book, Fatima and Hassan, were fully grown adults that behaved like children. The way they acted selfishly and complained like little kids about just every inconvenience made me want to fast forward through their dialogs. They have lived a pampered lifestyle inside the sultan’s palace, but they didn’t show any personality traits that I could identify with. We’re stuck with these characters through the whole book, and I couldn’t help wishing that they would grow up a little faster.
The storyline reminded me a lot of the Lord of the Rings – and maybe a little of Narnia. With the exception of the unusual destination at the end of the book I felt like we spent a lot of time on the journey with only a few close calls evading pursuit to make things interesting.
Maybe part of this long journey was the message of the book, but I didn’t really get any clear idea about what the point was – and after reading through a pretty long story you’ve got to hope for some kind of satisfactory conclusion. It just didn’t quite work for me.
Next I’m reading Circe, by Madeline Miller.
