Reviews tagging 'Torture'

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

81 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

chrisb913's review against another edition

adventurous funny inspiring mysterious fast-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

4.5

This was an incredibly fun read. The humor and wit of Amina and The supporting cast had me laughing the majority of the story. The incredibly unique narration of the book also boosted my enjoyment.

The way that Chakraborty wrote into the story breaks in the narration as if Amina was being interrupted while telling you the adventure was pure gold

. I also highly recommend listening to the audiobook because the voice for the characters was perfect. I really would like to reread this when the next book comes out. I wish I had tandem read the audio and physical together, as just listening to the audio, I feel like I missed out on worldbuilding and story plots. At the end of the day, highly recommend this books!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Body horror, Torture, and Alcohol

Minor: Slavery, Transphobia, and Rape

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

julian7's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

This was a great book! I loved the characters, especially Dalila, Raksh, Jamal, and ofc Amina. I really loved  the island of the peris because it was so weird in a fantastic way. It reminded me of the Abarat series a bit. I loved the bit about the spooky cave as well, because for some reason mysterious doors always scratch a very specific itch in my brain. I also enjoyed the humor and political commentary. Franco was an interesting villain and it was so funny how Amina couldn’t pronounce his name. 
I only have two complaints about the book. First, I wish we had gotten more of the side characters! I feel like there was so much focus on them in the first part of the story, when Amina was “getting the band back together,” only for them to disappear into the background once Raksh showed up. I enjoyed Raksh, don’t get me wrong, but I would have loved to learn more about the other characters, like Tinbu and Majed, who seemed so interesting. 
My other complaint is that the first third of the book went by very slowly, and the last two thirds felt much more fast-paced and a little too busy. A medium pacing throughout the whole book would have felt more cohesive. 
I’ll probably read the sequels, and I hope we get to learn more about the side characters and Raksh returns eventually. 🤭

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Torture, and Body horror

Minor: Rape, Slavery, Transphobia, and War

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.

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

brittanylee0302's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

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

3.25

This book was okay but I lost my interest in it about halfway through. The cover of this book has a kraken wrapped around a boat with 'adventures' being in the title which made me think this was going to be a fast pace adventure filled read & it really wasn't. Amina as a character is amazing, she's an older woman who is a bad ass mom & has been a little promiscuous through her life. However, when she goes to rescue people throughout the book she kind of loses some of her bad ass qualities. Magic is introduced in this book early on but it seems like the author kind of forgot they were writing a magical book until certain parts (minus Amina's husband). Overall, I had really high expectations for certain things in this book & felt consistently let down over them. I enjoyed the characters but the story just fell flat for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Kidnapping, and Torture

Minor: War, Blood, and Rape

fkshg8465's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Such a fun book, with a huge and diverse cast of characters. I didn’t even mind the storytelling inside the storytelling format (usually highly annoyed by that), but that was because it was minimal and not as distracting as usual. Great book for all ages. Reminds me a bit of The Princess Bride - full of adventure and driven by the love for one person, plus the salvation of an entire species!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Transphobia, Bullying, Classism, Violence, War, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Rape, and Torture

tabea1409's review against another edition

adventurous challenging inspiring mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Cursing, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Torture, Violence, War, Death of parent, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Death, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Blood, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Slavery