I loved this. It was written very calmly, and very visually. I loved the blend of Islamic folklore – djinn and djinn possession/exorcism, with a tale of female empowerment. Issues of transgender politics and repression were also woven in.
I felt engaged and sympathetic to the heroine, Khadija, and her friend, the fair skinned Jacob of the hari, the slave labour of her people, the dark skinned Ghadeans – known as ‘darkers’ in anger by the oppressed hari people.
There was much about perception and prejudice here, about the need to feel self-agency and have control over your own life – and the image for it all was floating free and high in a hot air balloon. The protagonist steals several balloons over the course of the book, but by the end, has her own, symbolising her newfound freedom. It felt incomplete in that the hari people and their treatment wasn't extensively addressed or solved at the end; but then again, that made it very true to our lives: racism isn't ever resolved here either, it takes education, activism and a lot of time. I think Khadija's story showed the beginning of a civil rights movement going into its next phase, becoming more powerful, reaching more people. And yet it didn't read as a political book at all - it read as a story of one girl doing her best to navigate life and her need to choose for herself.
It was a good story and I’d read anything else the author writes next.
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