Book Review: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

A pirate of infamy and one of the most storied and scandalous captains to sail the seven seas.

Amina al-Sirafi has survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse, she jumps at the chance for one final adventure with her old crew that will make her a legend and offers a fortune that will secure her and her family’s future forever.

Yet the deeper Amina dives the higher the stakes. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savour just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

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A fantastically enjoyable romp through the medieval Middle East with swashbuckling pirate queens, demons and djinni, giant squid and rapacious magically enhanced Europeans. A great, thrilling yarn!

Before reading this, I was aware of Chakraborty and the Daevabad trilogy – and that many students at my school loved them, which is as good a gauge as any critical opinion sometimes! – but I had never read any. My mind had just shunted her off into a clearing of YA Fantasy that I wasn’t drawn to somehow…

So, what changed with this book? I’ve got to hand it to the cover artist, here to be fair: the brightness of the colours, the ocean, the giant squid attack – a leviathan, although that feels like a word from the wrong myhthology, albeit one that Chakraborty employs – the tentacles, the swirling shapes in the sky like inkblots. And also roguish pirate queen in the blurb? Consider me sold!

And the novel does not disappoint!

It is at heart a one-last-heist narrative – so beloved by Hollywood at the moment – as a mysterious, enigmatic, powerful woman arrives at Amina al-Sirafi’s family home and offers the erstwhile pirate a ridiculous sum of money to come out of retirement to rescue her granddaughter, Dunya, from the nefarious clutches of a Frankish kidnapper. A crew is assembled all of whom have specific talents – Dalila and her poisons, her first mate Tinbu who had custody of Amina’s beloved ship the Marawati , Majeed with his maps, Raksh with his “charm” – each of which will prove to be vital in seeking to rescue the girl.

Along the way, Amina kills a demon, takes part in a prison break and an explosive sea battle; she witnesses a brutal murder by magic, and uncovers a cursed island; she is attacked by a sea monster and encounters an island of supernatural creatures… Plotwise, it is certainly busy. For me, it was perhaps a little frenetic – and I found that the opportunities to use the ship as a respite, as an opportunity to develop character and relationships on the travelling that must have taken days and weeks, was lost. And for me, who loves sea stories and was weaned on Moby-Dick, the ocean and the ship were never allowed to develop as part of Chakraborty’s world building – we were told how much Amina loved the Marawati, but I never felt that we were allowed to share in that love. Maybe, however, that is simply down to my own predilections and preferences.

I did love the camaraderie onboard the Marawati – the acceptance and inclusion on board the ship as different religions follow different traditions and observances, with some flexibility in terms of the life of pirates and rogues lived. Bickering and disagreements and teasing abounded, but the love that the crew felt for one another was abundantly clear- a warm and authentic found family – even if it felt at times a little anachronistic. Sexually liberated female captains, gay first mates, transgender were all accepted with barely a raised eyebrow – which is great – but didn’t necessarily strike me as authentic… but then it was a rollicking and fun fantastical voyage and I could put that all to one side easily enough.

I did also enjoy the narrative framing: Chakraborty presents Amina’s story in Amina’s own words as she narrates the latter part of her adventurous life to a scribe who, at times, intervenes and comments and adds documents that parallel the stories. I liked that – not entirely sure what it added, but I liked the quirkiness. And it was a delight to have an older adventurous protagonist – a mother whose motives were mixed and confused but included at least that innate desire to do anything to keep her daughter safe – and whose aching body and weak knees and ailing eyesight were constant reminders of her age.

It did make me wonder which target audience Chakraborty aimed the novel at: as a Young Adult novel it works well with its high pace and drama and set piece battles, but its narrator and characters are not part of the young adult experience… Equally, with an aging protagonist, it felt like it may have been written as an adult fantasy but it lacked some of the reflectiveness and depth that one might expect… I do hope this isn’t a novel that falls between those two stalls of the publishing industry.

The other standout character for me was Raksh – a rakish, roguish demon who had contracted with Amina in her years before retiring. He was a wonderful chaotic character, reminiscent of Tom Ellis’ Lucifer, feeding on ambitions and dreams and never trustworthy always selfish but wholly compelling, albeit also the author of an horrific tragedy that occurred a decade previously involving Asif, who it transpires was the father of the girl Amina has been tasked with rescuing… and of Raksh himself is a father too, a fact that become highly pertinent…

I loved the non-European mythologies built into Raksh and the other supernatural elements – it was incredibly refreshing to feel just slightly out of depth with that mythology and folklore and I’m sure I missed many nuances. There was one section that did not work quite as well for me, when Amina was stranded away from the mundane human world on a supernatural island and became something… more than human, charged by that other world to find relics and artefacts – and support a series of books. Did it diminish her as a character to give her preternatural powers in order to triumph? It is just a thought. Afterall, the Frankish villain in the novel was himself massively overpowered and monstrous!

As I said, the novel appears to be setting up a series and will I continue reading it? Absolutely! And I may just pick up the Daevabad trilogy too.