Name: Colleen's review of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan
Item: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years
Rating: 1
Author: Colleen

Shubnum Khan

Rebecca meets Fatima Farheen Mirza in this sweeping, gorgeously atmospheric novel about a ruined mansion by the sea, the djinn that haunts it, and a curious girl who unearths the tragedy that happened there a hundred years previous Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Now, nearly a century since it was built, it stands in ruins: an isolated boardinghouse for misfits, seeking to forget their pasts and disappear into the mansions dark corridors. Until Sana. She and her father are the latest of Akbar Manzil’s long list of tenants, seeking a new home after suffering painful loss. Unlike the others, who choose not to look too closely at the mansion’s unsettling qualities—the strange assortment of bones in the overgrown garden, the mysterious figure seen to move sometimes at night—she is curious and questioning and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion. To the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects—and to the locked door at its end, unopened for decades. Behind the door is a bedroom frozen in time, with faded photographs of a couple in love and a worn diary that whispers of a dark past: the long-forgotten story of a young woman named Meena, the original owner’s second wife, who died there tragically a hundred years ago. Watching Sana from the room’s shadows is a grieving djinn, an invisible spirit who once loved Meena and has haunted the mansion since her mysterious death. Obsessed with Meena’s story, and unaware of the creature that follows her, Sana digs into the past like fingers into a wound, awakening the memories of the house itself—and dredging up old and terrible secrets that will change the lives of everyone living and dead at Akbar Manzil. Sublime, heart-wrenching, and lyrically stunning, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a haunting, a love story, and a mystery, all twined beautifully into one young girl’s search for belonging.

A Novel

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

Colleen

This was a beautiful book.  I expected a story about a girl who discovers a djinn living in her new home, with unexpected consequences.  This story is so much more.  It is a beautiful tale about a girl struggling with life, who, with her father, moves into an apartment building full of emotionally hurt people and discovers a family.  The djinn is part of it, but not in the way one would normally expect.  The story is not about the djinn, but about how the past  connects to the present in unexpected ways.  I find the average rating for this book unexpectedly low.  It does not conform to what I thought the story would be, but it is so much more.  The prose is beautiful, the descriptions encompassing, and the characters vivid and charming.  I enjoyed this book immensely.  It is one of those rare books that one finishes with a sigh, knowing the story will stay with you.  

shellybn

*A massively disappointing story that reveled in trauma and did not resemble the synopsis at all*

**This review contains minor spoilers not pivot to the plot that are not hidden**

 caught my attention immediately. The promise of Gothic story about a djinn haunting a crumbling estate in South Africa sounded amazing. Unfortunately there were multiple things that made me go from enthusiastic optimism to outright loathing this book.

 That character (if you even want to call it that) literally could have been left entirely out of the book without changing anything in the plot. So if you are expecting some sort of magical being weaving the affairs of mortals, look elsewhere. I think it was just a metaphor or something, but by the time I realized that, I was too frustrated to try to suss it out. Also, the Djinn does not actually wait a hundred years. Though the earliest part of the story is 1914, the Djinn does not arrive until 1930, and the story ends in 2014. So the title is useless and a lie. Or someone is terrible at basic subtraction…

The story started in 2014 with a teenage girl and her grieving father constantly moving around - until they end up in a mysterious, dilapidated house haunted by a djinn. As I mentioned, I was initially intrigued by the story. It did follow the standard Gothic trope of "girl goes to remote, crumbling manor house and shit goes wrong." And the lyrical, descriptive writing did intrigue me at first despite being written in the dreaded present tense. I can see why it was compared to 

“The house watches all this with a peculiar kind of horror. It knows that things cannot remain the same forever. It has watched from its high perch how the town below changed over the years. It has seen roads cut through the landscape, buildings erupt, and people multiply.

It knows that nothing can escape change. That the djinn just opened the way for what was always going to happen.

The reopening of history like fingers digging into a wound.”

Part II of the story started to weave in the story starting in 1914 and the history of the house. I was utterly bored by that part of the story. The transitions between time periods were sloppy and discordant. And the past timeline ended up being what made me absolutely furious with this book.

You may notice that house is anthropomorphized in the quote above. I was ok with that at first. I’ve read plenty of books where the house was a character to varying degrees. But Khan kept pushing it farther. I understand anthropomorphizing the house, but she started doing the same with smells. And I started rolling my eyes a lot. Seriously, 

. And talking about what the smells remember. It started to remind me a lot more of 

 with its awkward sentient tree. Which was another strange attempt at Magical Realism with a socially awkard teenage girl grieving her mother and digging into the past while an anthropomorphized being watched on. (I was disappointed by that book as well.) Anyway, here is some insight into the smells:

“Now the fish smells and the custard smells look down drowsily from the rafters and observe the scene below. It is nothing like they remember from years ago. It is a sad sight.”

“Burned crab smells scuttle along the walls. And in their hurry, some fall down and scurry under the stove. But no one notices.”

I just can’t. Apparently my imagination is not limber enough to deal with sentient odors. It was like a Febreeze commercial on acid.

I already stated that this is not Fantasy. But it turned out it wasn’t Horror either.

 There were some descriptions early on that lead me to believe this would turn into Gothic Horror, but it absolutely did not. 

 barely managed Magical Realism. And nothing was really explained either: the Djinn, a character being haunted by her dead sister, the sentient house; the magical elements were just… there, awkwardly hanging out with the old smells and my shattered hopes of enjoying the story.

 was set on the South African coast but with all Indian characters. It seemed at first that the experiences of Indian immigrants during Apartheid would be an important part of the story – which I was very interested in since I have not read a book that focused on Indians in that part of South Africa’s history. But that was also a red herring.

So now that I’ve listed all the things this book isn’t about, what actually made up 

Well, this is what I call a D&T story: DRAMA AND TRAUMA! 

The second half of the book really went downhill and veered closer to trauma porn. And it absolutely bathed in the supposed beauty of trauma and tragedy. I despise books that bask in trauma like that.

This was a character-driven story but without good character development. And most of the characters were despicable. Literally every single character in this book had severe trauma. They were all so damaged - which the story seemed to revel in. The longer the story went on, the ickier I felt reading it. 

I literally felt grossed out by the tone the story took towards acting like trauma was something poetically beautiful.

As the story progressed, it rapidly moved towards focusing on the trauma and tragedy. It did not feel like the different parts and tones fit together. Everything promising from the beginning of the story devolved into soap opera drama.

Akbar and Meena's "love" story was just obsession and I absolutely hated it. But readers are supposed to be all swoony just because those two are labeled as soulmates and read poetry together. This is what absolutely ruined the story for me. Akbar was a complete creep. He was a spoiled rich man who manipulated all the women in his life. He married the woman his mother picked out for him. When she didn’t mold herself into his dream woman, he rejected her and demanded a younger woman marry him. This epic dirtbag called his young, pretty employee (who he had never even spoke to) into his office and announced that he was going to marry her because he had a dream about her. And her family forced her into being Akbar’s second wife entirely against her will. BUT THIS IS A LOVE STORY. I don’t care about making allowances for the time period and culture. It was completely toxic. This book literally made me feel sick – particularly with how the author tried to sell something so toxic as romantic. I’m not going to write anymore about that part of the story, because it has already poisoned my brain enough.

The powerlessness of women was also a common theme throughout the book. It is not something that is addressed or provides any sort of empowerment. The women in this book are just powerless. And no way in hell, does the story address this.

“From the day a girl is born she's told she needs a love story to survive. It's everywhere: in poetry, in music, in films and books. She's told life is worthless without love. She's told she is worthless without love.' She lowers her voice. 'But what no one tells her, what no one talks about, is that it can kill her. That the very thing they say can save her can destroy her. Love is a trap, darling. It lures you in then digs its bony fingers into your chest, breaks open your ribs, and yanks out your bloody, beating heart, and still leaves you alive.”

“Your kids abandon you, your husband leaves you, your best friend hates you, and eventually everyone dies. Trust me on this: at the end of the day, all you have is yourself.”

And the ending was a ridiculous, eye roll-inducing way to wrap up a trash fire of story. I am never reading anything else by this author.

Content warnings: misogyny, infidelity, gaslighting, bullying, grief, death, murder, suicide idealization, suicide, child neglect, child endangerment, child death, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, stalking, mental illness, animal abuse, racism, blood, fire/fire injury, and probably more that I’m forgetting. I wish I could forget it all.

Now, I’ve spent more than enough time dissecting a book that wasted my time and left me with a nasty taste in my mouth. I will end this review now. The ghostly smells of laundry loads past are judging me for not folding the laundry. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.

Characters and Character Development: 1 Star

1 Star

*A massively disappointing story that reveled in trauma and did not resemble the synopsis at all*

**This review contains minor spoilers not pivot to the plot that are not hidden**


The title and cover of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years caught my attention immediately. The promise of Gothic story about a djinn haunting a crumbling estate in South Africa sounded amazing. Unfortunately there were multiple things that made me go from enthusiastic optimism to outright loathing this book.

For starters, let me make it clear that the djinn was barely in the story. That character (if you even want to call it that) literally could have been left entirely out of the book without changing anything in the plot. So if you are expecting some sort of magical being weaving the affairs of mortals, look elsewhere. I think it was just a metaphor or something, but by the time I realized that, I was too frustrated to try to suss it out. Also, the Djinn does not actually wait a hundred years. Though the earliest part of the story is 1914, the Djinn does not arrive until 1930, and the story ends in 2014. So the title is useless and a lie. Or someone is terrible at basic subtraction…

The story started in 2014 with a teenage girl and her grieving father constantly moving around - until they end up in a mysterious, dilapidated house haunted by a djinn. As I mentioned, I was initially intrigued by the story. It did follow the standard Gothic trope of "girl goes to remote, crumbling manor house and shit goes wrong." And the lyrical, descriptive writing did intrigue me at first despite being written in the dreaded present tense. I can see why it was compared to Rebecca (on a surface level at least).

“The house watches all this with a peculiar kind of horror. It knows that things cannot remain the same forever. It has watched from its high perch how the town below changed over the years. It has seen roads cut through the landscape, buildings erupt, and people multiply.
It knows that nothing can escape change. That the djinn just opened the way for what was always going to happen.
Still, it cannot bear to witness this.
The reopening of history like fingers digging into a wound.”


Part II of the story started to weave in the story starting in 1914 and the history of the house. I was utterly bored by that part of the story. The transitions between time periods were sloppy and discordant. And the past timeline ended up being what made me absolutely furious with this book.

You may notice that house is anthropomorphized in the quote above. I was ok with that at first. I’ve read plenty of books where the house was a character to varying degrees. But Khan kept pushing it farther. I understand anthropomorphizing the house, but she started doing the same with smells. And I started rolling my eyes a lot. Seriously, smells. And talking about what the smells remember. It started to remind me a lot more of The Island of Missing Trees with its awkward sentient tree. Which was another strange attempt at Magical Realism with a socially awkard teenage girl grieving her mother and digging into the past while an anthropomorphized being watched on. (I was disappointed by that book as well.) Anyway, here is some insight into the smells:

“Now the fish smells and the custard smells look down drowsily from the rafters and observe the scene below. It is nothing like they remember from years ago. It is a sad sight.”


Or this:

“Burned crab smells scuttle along the walls. And in their hurry, some fall down and scurry under the stove. But no one notices.”


I just can’t. Apparently my imagination is not limber enough to deal with sentient odors. It was like a Febreeze commercial on acid.

I already stated that this is not Fantasy. But it turned out it wasn’t Horror either. There were some descriptions early on that lead me to believe this would turn into Gothic Horror, but it absolutely did not. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years barely managed Magical Realism. And nothing was really explained either: the Djinn, a character being haunted by her dead sister, the sentient house; the magical elements were just… there, awkwardly hanging out with the old smells and my shattered hopes of enjoying the story.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years was set on the South African coast but with all Indian characters. It seemed at first that the experiences of Indian immigrants during Apartheid would be an important part of the story – which I was very interested in since I have not read a book that focused on Indians in that part of South Africa’s history. But that was also a red herring.

So now that I’ve listed all the things this book isn’t about, what actually made up The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years? Well, this is what I call a D&T story: DRAMA AND TRAUMA! The second half of the book really went downhill and veered closer to trauma porn. And it absolutely bathed in the supposed beauty of trauma and tragedy. I despise books that bask in trauma like that.

This was a character-driven story but without good character development. And most of the characters were despicable. Literally every single character in this book had severe trauma. They were all so damaged - which the story seemed to revel in. The longer the story went on, the ickier I felt reading it. I literally felt grossed out by the tone the story took towards acting like trauma was something poetically beautiful.

As the story progressed, it rapidly moved towards focusing on the trauma and tragedy. It did not feel like the different parts and tones fit together. Everything promising from the beginning of the story devolved into soap opera drama.

Akbar and Meena's "love" story was just obsession and I absolutely hated it. But readers are supposed to be all swoony just because those two are labeled as soulmates and read poetry together. This is what absolutely ruined the story for me. Akbar was a complete creep. He was a spoiled rich man who manipulated all the women in his life. He married the woman his mother picked out for him. When she didn’t mold herself into his dream woman, he rejected her and demanded a younger woman marry him. This epic dirtbag called his young, pretty employee (who he had never even spoke to) into his office and announced that he was going to marry her because he had a dream about her. And her family forced her into being Akbar’s second wife entirely against her will. BUT THIS IS A LOVE STORY. I don’t care about making allowances for the time period and culture. It was completely toxic. This book literally made me feel sick – particularly with how the author tried to sell something so toxic as romantic. I’m not going to write anymore about that part of the story, because it has already poisoned my brain enough.

The powerlessness of women was also a common theme throughout the book. It is not something that is addressed or provides any sort of empowerment. The women in this book are just powerless. And no way in hell, does the story address this.

“From the day a girl is born she's told she needs a love story to survive. It's everywhere: in poetry, in music, in films and books. She's told life is worthless without love. She's told she is worthless without love.' She lowers her voice. 'But what no one tells her, what no one talks about, is that it can kill her. That the very thing they say can save her can destroy her. Love is a trap, darling. It lures you in then digs its bony fingers into your chest, breaks open your ribs, and yanks out your bloody, beating heart, and still leaves you alive.”

“Your kids abandon you, your husband leaves you, your best friend hates you, and eventually everyone dies. Trust me on this: at the end of the day, all you have is yourself.”

And the ending was a ridiculous, eye roll-inducing way to wrap up a trash fire of story. I am never reading anything else by this author.

Content warnings: misogyny, infidelity, gaslighting, bullying, grief, death, murder, suicide idealization, suicide, child neglect, child endangerment, child death, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, stalking, mental illness, animal abuse, racism, blood, fire/fire injury, and probably more that I’m forgetting. I wish I could forget it all.

Now, I’ve spent more than enough time dissecting a book that wasted my time and left me with a nasty taste in my mouth. I will end this review now. The ghostly smells of laundry loads past are judging me for not folding the laundry. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 1 Star
Writing Style: 2 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 1 Star
Plot Structure and Development: 1 Star
Level of Captivation: 1 Star
Originality: 2 Stars

Sivani

Apiecalypse Jen

I am going to try and come back to it again in a bit and see if I vibe better. I feel like this book has an identity crisis. Like it kind of wants to be spooky, and historical fiction, and like a book about girl trauma, and about a now and then story in a house, and a djinn story, or a ghost story… and I feel like if they maybe had tried to do less, more might have landed.

@chippedfang hmm, I know there is no book everyone likes, but if you aren't enjoying either by 1/3, you probably won't like the rest of it either. 😅 This book felt like it was inaccurately marketed. I'm still miffed that it wasn't even about the djinn. 

Oh my gosh I am about 1/3 of the way through and I came to read your review because I am finishing this insufferable and I was like “oooookay… let’s see if it’s gonna be an DnF… “ and I think it might be…

Colleen &
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

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The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan