Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Djinn's Apple by Djamila Morani. It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews.
I don't often read books in translation but this one was done in a lovely way. Here's to translators the world over! There were certain phrases that were just so beautiful and which added to this book feeling like poetry almost. It definitely feels like a bit of a dream.
The book is set in Baghdad, in the Abbasid period of time, under that caliphate. This was new to me so I enjoyed learning a little bit about it. At the beginning of the book Nardeen is twelve and she lives with her parents, her two older brothers, and her little sister. Her dad is a doctor and a translator; he teaches Nardeen about healing the sick and so on. She wants to be a doctor too. The caliph doesn't like her family, and one night his men break in and kill all of Nardeen's famile except for her. She manages to escape, unsure who or what they are looking for. She comes round in a hospital and learns she has been captured as a slave and will be sold.
However, then a man called Ishaq saves her from that. He is known to her and it's not entirely clear whose side he is on. But she trusts him and over the next four years they do build a sort of father/daughter relationship. Then he takes her to the hospital where he teaches, and includes her in the teaching even though the male students aren't too keen on this. But she can do things that the men can't, including treating high class women who can't be seen uncovered by men. Ishaq teaches Nardeen to trust in her instincts. She starts to fall in love. But she still wants to serve justice on the men who killed her family... what will she do when she comes face to face with one of them?
I loved the setting of this book and Nardeen is a great character. I loved the historical background and really I just wish it had been longer because I wanted more of it!
Thank you for reading. Please check out the other stops on the tour!
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