A lovely enjoyable read and more than I as expecting, this had me hooked. Great characters and development across the story, wonderful story and world building. A cliffhanger that means I am eager to know what next. Entertaining and fun

Thank you, NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for providing me with an ARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Djinn is a YA urban fantasy with Djinns as the fantastical creatures. The story is told from Bijou a young teenager's perspective. We follow her move to the new town filled with new beginnings. Bijou has been following her grandmother from place to place uprooting her life. The new town where they planned to settle hoping for a normal life gets turned upside down when supernatural events happen. Bijou finds herself finding truths about herself and her past making her question her whole life. The story started out being promising and then somewhere down the line went downhill for me. I was extremely intrigued by the concept of Djinns and how they were being portrayed in the story. The Djinns had a lot in common with the Muslim narrative found in the Quran. This was one of the reasons why I was drawn to the story in the first place. Djinns and their backstory were pretty fascinating and the smaller stories that we get to see in the book were all fantastic and had the creepy and weird vibe done remarkably well. While the first half was interesting and engaging the second half felt rushed and brought in more confusion than clarity tot he storyline. Overall the story was fun but lacked clarity. The stories within the book and lore were intriguing. I am giving 2.5 stars to this story. If you enjoy stories of paranormal creatures and Djinns, you might wanna check this book out.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book!

I've always had a fascination for Middle Eastern history and folklore. I was very excited to start this book called 'Djinn', expecting a story about this particular mythical creature I've read about in myths.

This book, however, is not specifically about those djinns. Here, djinn is the name for all creatures from the Otherworld, like the well-known fae. This story is based on Liberian folklore.

We meet Bijou, who lives with her grandmother Gigi. They've been moving around a lot, but have now settled in the small town of Sykesville. Bijou is not any regular girl - she can sense the emotions of most people. All of these emotions can overwhelm her quickly, so she's been home schooled for a long time. But now she's 16 and it's time to meet new people, make friends, and go to school.

At school she meets Sebastian, who is supposed to help her get familiar with her new school. He is one of the Others though - someone whose emotions cannot be distinguished by Bijou. When Bijou, Sebastian and his twin sister become friends, strange things start happening. Why can Bijou feel all these things? What do her visions mean and why do they seem to come true?

This book kept me guessing on who could be trusted all the way to the end of the story. Along the way we meet a lot of characters who are more than they seem and I loved how it came together in the end. All of those names and their loyalties were a bit too confusing for me at times though.

This book deserves to be read if you're into djinn, the fae or a midsummer night's dream! For me it was a 3,5 star read.

An exciting book that keeps you guessing until the end wondering what everyone's true motives are. It was nice to see the characters develop and find themselves while grappling with their fate and a huge prophecy. The magic elements are also unique and wonderfully woven into the characters themselves.

I picked up this book because of the title. Djinn is another spelling of genie so I thought that’s what it would be about. It is not. But I’m not disappointed with what I got instead either.

The story is one that has been told hundreds of times before but it’s different. It follows Bijou as she goes to school for the first time in 16 years. At this school, she will meet people who will help her understand the weirdness in her life and she will finally learn the truth about who she really is. A bit like in Fallen by Lauren Kate, like Tithe by Holly Black, or even a bit like City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. So, the plot itself isn’t original.

What is original is the setting, and I don’t mean Sykesville. The book uses Arabic folklore and African folklore and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which the author gives a twist of her own. The djinn are a little like the fae that have swamped YA fiction in recent years, but they are also different in their powers and their connection to the elements. And, let’s not forget, plenty of Buffy the Vampire Slayer references.

A few things are a little on the nose, such as their teacher suddenly teaching them about the djinn in stories and folklore. Even before you know about the djinn, that gives it a little away.

A plus point, I find, is that Bijou isn’t the only one discovering her life has been nothing but lies strung together. Many things have been kept from almost all the characters, which meant that even those who could help Bijou get the answer she needs will discover things they might not want to know. There are secrets and betrayals, there are prophecies and strange dreams.

I enjoyed the story and hope there is going to be a second book, especially considering the way the book ended. Not exactly a cliffhanger but definitely a lot of loose ends I would love to see tied up.

One last thing. The cover isn’t my favorite. it definitely represents Bijou but if I’d seen only the cover and the title hadn’t intrigued me (I’m working a story called Djinn so yeah, I just had to read it), I don’t think I would have picked it up. Which would have been a shame. Don’t let the cover scare you off!

trigger warning
<spoiler> being orphaned, being kidnapped, mind control, being posessed </spoiler>

After years of constantly moving from one place to another, Bijou and her grandmother Gigi finally settle in one place, which also means that the homeschooling may stop and Bijou gets her wish of attending a regular school.
The first day is more exciting than Bijou would have guessed, because she meets the guy she's been seeing in her dreams.

This book feels unedited. As if the author picked her favourite concepts from books and mushed them together without smoothing the edges, maybe even wish fulfillment. It reads like a early 2000 ya, and I am so over this.

Let me try to gather my thoughts. It begins with tell, don't show.
We're told that Bijou has been taught by her grandmother so far, who is a famous author and disgustingly rich, so they were able to be on the run in comfort. Our protagonist doesn't know and maybe doesn't even suspect they're on the run, though.
Not only has she been trained in reading, writing, math and other basics, but they're also doing martial arts. This is mentioned once in the whole novel, and sorry, that doesn't work. Yes, you might learn a technique and then have it in your brain, but your muscles need constant training or they atrophy.
Even if you never were into martial arts yourself, this is basic health knowledge. You can't preserve muscles without work, and if this works because you're not human, it needs to be adressed.
That issue kind of works for many of the problems which can be found in this book.

Bijou is an Empath. She feels other people's emotions and her only way of warding this off is by concentrating on something else. She uses a stack of cards she shuffles.
This is a great technique I myself use to ground myself - though not by shuffling.
Despite never been really trained in how to control this ability or cope with it, Bijou decides she wants to go to a high school full of very emotional people a.k.a. teenagers. It's a stupid idea, and I wish it had been explored at all. We get the onset of panic attacks, but the scene always ends before something can happen, things can escalate.

Another thing that bothered me about her being an empath is that she's constantly surprised by people arriving without drawing attention to themselves. She is not alerted to another's presence by feeling a different set of emotions.
I get that it would work this way in school, where simply too much is going on to concentrate on a single individual, but it looks more like either Bijou needs to be aware of a person to feel their emotions or the author simply forgot. If it's done on purpose, it should be adressed, and it's such a basic thing that I ask myself why the editor didn't catch that. It makes me wonder how this was edited, especially since the lettering on the cover looks kinda off, like a self published book.

At the beginning of the book, there is a big drama happening in P.E., which is given much room and then never really mentioned again. It's kinda ignored, both by cast of characters and the author, which feels off.

As Bijou starts to get a clue on what is happening, she is made aware of that she has powers that are still growing. She has no idea how big they'll get, but she does not explore. Or try to harness her abilities. She does not ask question about these powers, or how she could handle them, despite being dependend on her deck of cards to be able to focus in school - which again, is constantly tugging at her empathy because we're talking hormone-addled teenagers.
Sorry, but no. She's just so passive. She has no plans, no sense of self-protection. She has no hobbies, the only thing that makes her appear slightly more three dimensional is the card deck, but then that's so overused that this effect is cancelled out again.
All these characters feel like simple names that are tossed around, not like real people, and since there are so many of them, I kept confusing them for each other towards the end of the novel. Oh, apart from Kit, who felt very natural. But Kit is a big grey cat who random appears, wants to be petted, and goes off again. It's never even solved where she came from.

And then the book simply stops in the middle of the scene in the big finale.
I am aware of the existence of cliffhangers, but this is ridiculous.

I have no interest on reading further despite being left hanging.
This would be okay if it were a manuscript, but I have trouble to believe this is a finished product that went through editing. No recommendation from me.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.