A review by daynpitseleh
The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories, by Neil Gaiman
5.0
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a collection of stories about djinn (jinn/genie/etc), a concept that can be found in a variety of cultures. The stories run the gamut in terms of genre and culture, with each author being allowed to write (and spell) djinn as they prefer (thank you editors for not homogenizing the spelling, it was appreciated!). While Neil Gaiman is probably the most popular author in the collection, I actually skipped that story (it's an excerpt from American Gods, which I have already read and didn't particularly care for). This left me with a bunch of other stories, a few authors I had heard of, but most whom were completely unknown to me - and this is the kind of short story collection I like, something that introduces me to different authors that are amazing and multicultural and leads me down a rabbit hole of finding their other works to read.
So, I ended up being completely blown away by this collection. The stories were great, and while there were a few I didn't quite like as much as others (there are always some in a short story collection), there were so so many that I loved.
I was going to list a few of my favorite stories in this collection, but I ended up listing almost all of the stories, so instead I will just list my absolute favorite - "Reap" by Sami Shah. This story is amazing, and I've been coming back to it days later.
Overall, I can't recommend this book enough.
This is a collection of stories about djinn (jinn/genie/etc), a concept that can be found in a variety of cultures. The stories run the gamut in terms of genre and culture, with each author being allowed to write (and spell) djinn as they prefer (thank you editors for not homogenizing the spelling, it was appreciated!). While Neil Gaiman is probably the most popular author in the collection, I actually skipped that story (it's an excerpt from American Gods, which I have already read and didn't particularly care for). This left me with a bunch of other stories, a few authors I had heard of, but most whom were completely unknown to me - and this is the kind of short story collection I like, something that introduces me to different authors that are amazing and multicultural and leads me down a rabbit hole of finding their other works to read.
So, I ended up being completely blown away by this collection. The stories were great, and while there were a few I didn't quite like as much as others (there are always some in a short story collection), there were so so many that I loved.
I was going to list a few of my favorite stories in this collection, but I ended up listing almost all of the stories, so instead I will just list my absolute favorite - "Reap" by Sami Shah. This story is amazing, and I've been coming back to it days later.
Overall, I can't recommend this book enough.