Melati looks like a typical teen: going to a movie with a friend, talking about music and celebrity crushes. But inside her head, she is constantly waging war with a djinn. Her father is already dead, and the djinn tells her about all the horrible things that will happen to her mother if she doesn't obey. The djinn loves numbers, so she placates it by doing things like tapping in multiples of three. Sometimes, she can do this discreetly while appearing normal and sometimes she loses hours of her life to it. Melati is used to envisioning horrible fates, but that doesn't make it easier when something truly horrifying comes to pass. Riots break out between the Malay and Chinese and Melati sees people massacred. She is quickly separated from her friend and has no way of contacting her mother. How can Melati survive alone in the chaos when she struggles in everyday life?
This book, which takes place during the 1969 race riots in Kuala Lumpur, is gripping, intense and violent. Melati is a powerful character and I found the way she framed her OCD as a djinn inside her head fascinating. Every character is carefully crafted and fully fleshed out. The writing was beautiful and the plot unrelenting.
Erica's Picks
8th grade
tags: character driven, global perspectives, historical fiction, mental illness, people of color, survival
This book, which takes place during the 1969 race riots in Kuala Lumpur, is gripping, intense and violent. Melati is a powerful character and I found the way she framed her OCD as a djinn inside her head fascinating. Every character is carefully crafted and fully fleshed out. The writing was beautiful and the plot unrelenting.
Erica's Picks
8th grade
tags: character driven, global perspectives, historical fiction, mental illness, people of color, survival
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