Two Years, eight months and twenty-eight days

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

In the near future, after a storm strikes New York City, the strangenesses begin. A down-to-earth gardener finds that his feet no longer touch the ground. A graphic novelist awakens in his bedroom to a mysterious entity that resembles his own sub–Stan Lee creation. Abandoned at the mayor’s office, a baby identifies corruption with her mere presence, marking the guilty with blemishes and boils. A seductive gold digger is soon tapped to combat forces beyond imagining.

Unbeknownst to them, they are all descended from the whimsical, capricious, wanton creatures known as the jinn, who live in a world separated from ours by a veil. Centuries ago, Dunia, a princess of the jinn, fell in love with a mortal man of reason. Together they produced an astonishing number of children, unaware of their fantastical powers, who spread across generations in the human world.

Once the line between worlds is breached on a grand scale, Dunia’s children and others will play a role in an epic war between light and dark spanning a thousand and one nights—or two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights. It is a time of enormous upheaval, where beliefs are challenged, words act like poison, silence is a disease, and a noise may contain a hidden curse.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pretty, Pretty words. This author is good at language and has a history of writing some of the most beautifully arranged sentences out there. That happened somewhat in this book as well, but to me, it seemed like there was a lot of effort put into contrasting and a lot less effort put into creating a story that was exciting and readable.

Honestly, there are some really long sentences in this book and sometimes that is okay with me, but for parts of this–they were so long and wordy that I forgot what the author was originally talking about.

There are two stories going on in this book simultaneously and I think it is highly possible(it was for me anyway,) That you will really like one and not find much meaning in the other.

As far as being magical realism, this book pushes the envelope toward fantasy. The world is not exactly what one expects to see in magical realism and one of the main stories revolves around a mythical being.

I didn’t think this was a bad book and I’m sure there are many who will love it, but for me, it was just okay.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.