This is a beautiful, magical book. The kind that leaves you in awe, sitting in silence for a long moment, your mind unable to comprehend the wonder of what you've just read. 
 Although I'll admit it was a little bit slow to start, The Golem and the Jinni was, in all, truly incredible. I don't throw these kinds of compliments around lightly, I really did love this book. It was beautifully written, with an amazingly intricate plot. 
 It was the characters, though, that really made this novel. Chava and Ahmad, and all of the humans who were involved in their lives in various ways, were so well developed that I felt genuinely invested in their stories. I thought the author did a fantastic job of handling the perspectives of two nonhuman creatures trying to find their way in the world, and I loved their different insights on the subjects of morality, religion, and love. As outsiders, they saw the feelings, behaviors, and spirituality of the human race from a unique and fascinating perspective. 
 As an antagonist, Schaalman was extremely compelling. There's been such a recent trend of making villains seem sympathetic and misunderstood; I liked that he was complex enough that the reader could feel his humanity, but not to such a point that it overshadowed how twisted and dark he was. 
 The rabbi, Arbeely, Saleh, Matthew, and Anna, despite being minor characters, still felt sufficiently three-dimensional. (Sophia was the only character I wasn't crazy about, but I'd say I felt more of an indifference to her storyline than an outright dislike. She bored me at times.) There wasn't a moment in the story where it felt like a character acted or made a decision that went against who they were, and that's a rare enough quality in a book. 
 Apart from the characters, though, I fell in love with the setting. Wecker brought the New York of more than a century ago to life in a way that feels almost as magical as her descriptions of the Jinni's palace in the desert. The different neighborhoods shaped around different religions and cultures, the rivers, the rooftops, the parks...it felt like a worthy setting for such a fantastical story. 
 Anyway, I think I've gone on long enough about the fact that I really liked this book. I don't give five-star reviews easily. But this is one of those stories that I know will stay with me for a while, whose people and places and possibilities will linger in my thoughts and continue to affect me.