In a near-future city, Arab-Indian
hacker Alif (the first letter of the Arabic alphabet) sells his illegal skills
to the highest bidder while dreaming of a future he can't have with his
aristocratic lover. Meanwhile, the devout, niqab-wearing girl next door warns him that the local mouser may be more than she seems:
"All cats are half jinn, but I think she's three-quarters."
What follows next is an exciting
urban fantasy set in the Middle East that blends thriller elements with a
strong romantic subplot. Wilson, an American convert to
Islam who wrote about straddling two different cultures in her memoir, The Butterfly Mosque, pulls in different religious concepts about the Jinn to populate her
story-world. She includes an appendix with great graphic depictions of the five
types of Jinn, and incorporates the concept of the 'Unseen' as having free will,
including the choice of what religion to follow. Unlike most fiction, which
treats the Jinn as creepy monsters or wish-fulfillment machines, 'Alif' depicts
them as complex characters who are more sympathetic than the police state the
hero struggles against.
Themes of autocracy, as well as
ethnic and class differences, are woven in nicely and provide a glimpse of the
diversity of the 'Arab Street' so often talked about by Western journalists.
Especially refreshing is having a POC protagonist from the culture being
described, and details of Muslim women's religious dress are treated as part of
the story, without exoticism.
I had a few quibbles with the
story. I found a side character who was
too much based on the author herself less interesting than Alif and his
companions, and I wanted to read more about the world of the Jinn and how their
magic worked. Overall, though, I enjoyed the book and didn't want to put it
down. There's strong romantic tension and great pacing, and the novel would
appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. There's no explicit sex, and the
violence is not graphic, so some teens might find it a great read as well.
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