Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty

105 reviews

celery's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Transphobia, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, Body horror, Colonisation, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Animal death, Slavery, Confinement, Death of parent, Vomit, Blood, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, Torture, Classism, and Cursing

kesreads13's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Torture and Colonisation

Minor: Sexism, Transphobia, Blood, Trafficking, Islamophobia, and Slavery

meggiemeggie52's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I'm not usually a fantasy girlie, but I really enjoyed this! It was so descriptive and well-written, and I quickly grew to love the characters. Some parts got a little gory for my taste, but it really wasn't that often compared to the size of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cursing, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Minor: Gaslighting, Slavery, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Emotional abuse

There's not a LOT of the really graphic stuff until the last third of the book, I'd say, but even that isn't as high in quantity as one might expect from a pirate fantasy. But it does get quite descriptive and gave me the heebie jeebies a few times.

kristenreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror

kirtreads's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This book was really fun! The story was interesting, but I think that the characters are the star of the show. Each character has a really unique voice and feel like a fully fleshed out person. They each brought something fun to the story and I never felt annoyed with a character. I honestly would just be okay with a book that is just the characters hanging out on a boat and doing nothing else. 

I listened to the audiobook and I really loved how each of the characters were narrated. The voices all were really distinct and really communicated the characters personality. It was such a fun story to listen to. 

The book did take a little bit of time to get going and it did sometimes feel like the story was slower paced than I wanted. I also wanted a little more of her crew, which I am hoping that I will get in a sequel. It also felt weirdly episodic and chunked out instead of one smooth story, but I don't mind that. 

I thought that the book presented the idea of struggling to be a mother in this chaotic lifestyle but that sometimes felt like it was on the side for a lot of the plot. We had Almina constantly mentioning getting back to her daughter but then

when she decides that she does actually want to travel and balance a life on the sea with being a part it feels rushed and there is almost no consideration for it. I know why the author did it, but I wanted a little more from that theme if you are going to lay it out as the main premise of the novel.

Overall, had a great time with this book, it was super fun and the narrator work was great. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Violence, Murder, Blood, Body horror, and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content and Religious bigotry

keelirae113's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The story has a slow start, but once I got past the world building I was hooked! A fantastic read for anyone who has ever been told there is a “respectable” life they need to fit themselves into. You aren’t too much and anyone who thinks you are can go find less. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Slavery, Blood, Cursing, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, Animal cruelty, Grief, Body horror, Classism, Death, Child abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, and Sexism

Moderate: Sexual assault, Islamophobia, Murder, Racism, Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Abandonment, Sexual violence, Torture, Addiction, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Drug use, Cannibalism, Cultural appropriation, Religious bigotry, and Stalking

kiwij96's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A middle aged female pirate is forced to come out of retirement for one more adventure. Re-recruiting her former crew to rescue the grandchild of a wealthy woman, who also happens to be the mother of another former crew member.

The story was engaging, with good characters: flawed people each with a deep history which brings them to life and makes them immediately likeable, and their relationships to each other are realistic and don't feel forced. And the plot developed at a reasonable pace, nothing felt rushed or out of place for the most part.

At about 65-70% of the way in, I personally felt like the plot lost its way a bit and absolutely could have been handled differently to make the book at least 100 pages shorter, and to be a fantastic standalone.

The island bit was genuinely so messy and felt so rushed and unnecessary, I almost put the book down. Anything from landing on the island to the moment when they found Magnun felt like filler, filler which is unfortunately a plotpoint for the continuation of the series.

Raksh also had the potential to be such a fun character, but the amount of times he used the phrase "sexual intercourse" honestly made my skin crawl. That was just unnecessary.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Blood, Torture, and Genocide

Moderate: Alcohol, Misogyny, Grief, Racism, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Sexism, and Islamophobia

dogearedbooks's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Blood

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Transphobia

machenn's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Murder, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

twiller's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Y’all, this is a weird one! Not bad by any means (I rly enjoyed a lot of it, actually!) but certainly strange. The first half of the book is this “season 1 of a longform adventure anime”-esque collecting-the-squad montage and easily the best part of the book. Anima is a striking but relatable main character with oodles of flair and the supporting cast introductions are banger after banger. I’m completely obsessed with the first like, 300 pages. The later parts are… bizarre. Continuing the anime comparison, the last 100 pages or so feel like when an anime’s last arc is too long to put in one episode but the creators wanna make one BIG IMPACT finale so they just do the entire last volume of the manga in a big season-ending movie. It’s not bad! It just throws a LOT at the reader in very quick successions and very little of it is fleshed out enough to rly leave an impression. I’m intrigued by the ideas presented towards the end, but they never rly grow beyond those ideas. It makes complete sense to me that this is the first part of the trilogy, there’s plenty to expand on here, but I’ve read series-beginning books that have a more complete stand-alone plot than this. As it is, it never rly feels like this book ever “ends”. It just kinda… stops. I prolly will check out the sequels bc, as I said, I’m interested in the concepts presented here, plus I’ve heard Chakraborty’s other series (which I have not read) has a similarly rusty start but leads to an incredible payoff. We shall see! 

Last thought: As a history nerd and SPECIFICALLY a historical fiction lover that will tear my hair out if I have to look at another fucking Austen-wannabe Victorian romance, I am soooo happy that Chakraborty’s works and Islamic/MENA/South Asian historical fiction stories as a whole are getting some traction (finally some good fucking food). That being said, I’ve seen some ppl say that they’re bummed that the Muslim fantasy novel with a mostly brown cast getting press is written by a white American lady n… yeah that kinda sucks. I don’t think it’s any fault of Chakraborty’s herself (she is Muslim herself and it’s obvious from her extensive source list and author’s note that she tried incredibly hard to do this story justice), but once again the publishing industry reveals its deeeeeeeeep biases. I genuinely recommend this book even through all of its flaws, but I also recommend checking out some lesser known works by global Muslim authors. Idk I doubt that’s a particularly hot take but yeah anyway um!!! This review is rambly but i don’t care I have to go study for an exam bye!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Transphobia and Homophobia