A review by lauraleafromthelibrary
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty

adventurous challenging funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Man, this book. So many good things. I enjoyed it immensely. The audio narration was 10/10 flawless. Loved the aside dual-narrative perspective — scribe and protagonist combined. Raksh was my favourite character and worth every page he appeared on.

The GOOD:
  • The narration — told through two characters, a scribe (Jamal) and protagonist (Amina).
  • The feminist vibes — she’s a badass pirate captain.
  • The Middle Eastern culture and setting (Indian Ocean) was so fascinating to live in.
  • Raksh — what a dude (he better be in the next book).
  • A trans character.
  • The found-family type crew.
  • Payasam, the scrawny ship cat.

The BAD:
  • I didn’t love the constant religious (Muslim, Christian, Hindu) influence — not being religious myself, it was hard to stomach. It was in an overwhelmingly large part of the story.
  • The mythical creatures — weren’t my favourite. The bird (peri) people especially. The giant sea octopus leviathan was DOPE tho.
  • The fade-to-black moments — like, you can swear and fight and do all crazy amounts of things but when it comes to writing a little smut, this author was like nope, not for me — which is sad because Raksh is just so very, very GOOD. Moment lost.