It's come to my attention that this series misrepresents Islam and stereotypes the Middle East, so I've removed my rating and hidden my original review below.

Spoiler

3.7 stars

I've always loved stories of djinns and magic and girls disguising themselves as boys, and I also loved how omnipresent and important the desert setting remained throughout the story. The romance was a little iffy — the progression didn't seem to flow completely naturally imo — but Jin was great, I liked him a lot. (And while I knew there was more to him than met the eye (isn't there always?) I didn't actually manage to guess who he really was!) Revolution plotlines in YA lit can go poorly (as is usually the case) or extremely well if carefully thought out and executed, and this story clearly falls into the latter category.