Friend suggested I read this, and wow, what a ride. If you’re a fan of Percy Jackson or want to learn a new mythology, this is the book for you.

Farrah sees her father just one day every year—her birthday. But this year, her wish to bring them closer goes wildly awry when Farrah discovers she is a half-jinn…and her father is one of the seven great jinn kings. Her wish traps her father inside a legendary ring, and the other six jinn kings will follow unless Farrah can rectify her mistake.

Pursued by menacing shadow jinn, Farrah’s quest takes her to a floating mountain range. Joined by Idris, the jinn boy whom she inadvertently freed from the ring, and her newly discovered half-brother, Yaseen, Farrah must find a way to navigate the mysteries and dangers of her new world in order to save her father and face the most devious jinn lord of all.

The premise and the set-up is pretty typical chosen-one material with Farrah being told that her father’s mysterious absences from her life are due to cultural restrictions rather than anything supernatural. So naturally when she makes a wish for her fate to be rewritten and find her place in her father’s world, she doesn’t expect him to be sucked away into another dimension. Not to mention the rest of her family thinks she just has an overactive imagination when she tells them what happened.

While the beginning starts out predictable, where Zargarpur shines is in detailing the magical jinn world and hierarchy. It truly is magical, and you can see the colors and sparks flying as she blends legend with fantasy. Moreover, she excels in the character relationships like Farrah’s feelings towards her maternal family whom she loves, but also feels pressured to become less dreamy, more sensible. But she comes to see they are not so different from her. Her mother’s pragmatism comes from self-preservation and trying to protect Farrah.

Her new friend, Idris, has an interesting dynamic (which I suspect shall become a ship in later books, just got the vibes) from reluctant allies to friends. Her oldest and best friend, Arzu is fun and is surprisingly able to contribute a lot to the last third of the book even though she’s only a human. She’s also based on the author’s best friend from childhood which I thought was so so sweet.

Farrah also finds out that she has a half-brother who’s full jinn, and doesn’t trust humans at all. Obviously, this brings up confusing feelings for Farrah as she wants to connect with Yaseen, but is hurt by his prejudice and the fact that her father (who obviously fell in love with a mortal woman to have her) encouraged these feelings of distrust. Is that how her father truly feels about her? She already felt weird in the human world, is she not to be accepted by jinns either?

It doesn’t help that she has the big bad, Azar, creeps into her thoughts and biggest insecurities, tempting her to betray her father and new friends for the sake of power. I gotta be honest, I love the evil guy voicing the character’s dark desires as a trope so I loved the push-pull between Farrah and Azar.

And her father. . . her feelings towards her father is the most complicated of all. I enjoyed how Zargarpur doesn’t make the obvious choice of Farrah immediately accepting her father back into her life. Rather, she is still unsure she wants him in her life even to help her with her newfound jinn heritage/powers. But I suppose we’ll have to see it develops in the sequel.

Overall, this was a fun book with quick pace, lots of action and complicated family relationships for readers to devour.