This series has many interesting ideas, told in a forward and enjoyable style. The main characters are well developed, some of them likeable, but not really relatable. But I guess it's the main crux of the books: how human can you be if you're a construct of earth made by a human being to serve another human being? How likeable and relatable do you need to be if you're a djinn, imprisonned by a human sorcerer for centuries, and not being able to be truly free and go back to your people? The golem and the djinn are different in every point. One comes from a Jewish Shtetl in Poland, the other comes from the desert of Syria. One wants to be free but can't, the other is free but doesn't want that burden. One is made of fire, the other of earth. One can't comprehend what drives humans, the other cannot tune out of their thoughts. And yet, they both arrive in New York City at the same time in 1900, both are taken in by one of "their people" who recognizes how different and inhuman they are, and they end up meeting with each other. Then they both have to face their own past and origins. It was a good book, but the mythologizing of New York City as a logical conclusion for all humanity—you cannot be someone if you don't emigrate to New York—left me nonplussed.