Monrovia – Are you a fan of the Twilight Saga? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Well, forget everything you know about those stories, and any other YA fantasy story you’ve read, as I guarantee you, Sang Kromah’s Djinn is like no Fantasy story you’ve read before. Allow me to tell you why.
Review by Adrienne Tingba, Contributing Writer
Djinn tells the story of Bijou Fitzroy; just your ordinary teenage girl adjusting to the challenges of being a new student in a new school, and a new town. Except, there is nothing ordinary about Bijou, or the school, and especially not the town! Bijou and her grandmother, Gigi, moved to Sykesville Maryland after an adventurous life in cities like New York, Paris, London, etc. In comparison to such cities, Sykesville really does not stand a chance, but for some reason, Bijou’s peculiar grandmother, Gigi, chose that town as a settling ground for her and Bijou. With a grand new home that puts the mansions of your dreams to shame, and the start of a new school for Bijou, who had been homeschooled her entire life, life was finally about to be normal.
But, what exactly does it mean to be normal anyway, when you are a mixed race girl who is an empath, and recently discovered all she knows as her life is a lie, and that her mix breed isn’t with Black or White, but with Black, and other…. What is a Liberian girl to do?
As a child living in Liberia, story time in my family’s village was always my favorite. Our blended family would gather together by one of our grandmother’s hut for the night with lanterns in hand and all the children circled around the story-teller of the night. One of my grandmothers’ stories would always be the most frightening, leaving us arguing amongst ourselves the following day about what is real, and what isn’t. Are there really men who physically turn into chicken and pigs, humans who transfer their spirits into that of animals when the sun goes out? Or, are there women living in the water who are so beautiful, they give the phrase “if looks could kill” new meaning? From the words of my grandmother, we were not to take those stories as just stories, as they were tales of the night in the forests and oceans of Liberia – the stories of the Djinn who are among us.
Sang Kromah’s Djinn delivers a riveting new twist to my girlhood stories. Stories that once frightened me, given new additions which captivated my imagination with every turn of the page. Kromah uses her imagination to create a world of what it means to be other, whether in the traditional sense, or in the magical/spiritual sense, like the Djinn. With each page, the readers are lured into the mind of Bijou Fitzroy as she discovers who she is, where she comes from, and what she is. It is exciting as a reader to go on such a compelling, intimidating, and courageous journey with the characters as they are introduced and developed.
Djinn by Sang Kromah is a breath of fresh air as compared to stories usually told or inspired by Liberia. As African story-tellers, it is important to break out of the mold of the single story that has been assigned to us, and allow ourselves to be other. With Djinn, sang Kromah has done just that, and I am excited to hopefully read the next series to this enchanting story of Bijou Fitzroy, the girl who has stolen the magic meant for the sun.