 Middle Eastern high seas adventure. Cool. Let's do it. And I quickly begin to hate it. Quips to not eat will win. My tastes are not a good indication of majority opinion. So The Adventures of Amina al-Sarafi by Shannon Chakra Bordi. I think it's safe to say it was a pretty anticipated release. So my expectations going into it. I read City of Brass pretty around the time when it came out and I didn't get the hype and I did not continue in that series. I continued ever since then to hear Chakra Bordi widely praised. It's made me think maybe I should continue the Dave Abad series but I was like eh I didn't really like the first one so I don't know. There was a massive hype about this book which was I believe her first non-Dave Abad book. So her first thing she'd written after finishing the Dave Abad series. So there was massive hype from people who had loved the Dave Abad series and as far as what this book would be I knew that it was by Shannon Chakra Bordi. I knew that it would be about an older female protagonist. I knew that it would be a high seas adventure which you know is clear from the cover. I knew that it would have Middle Eastern influence or inspiration and I knew that it was adult fantasy. So in terms of expectations I mean they were recently high but tempered because I hadn't loved her previous books or book. I only read City of Brass and you know it vaguely sounded good. It sounded like it would be quite different from the Dave Abad trilogy. I guess my only expectation would be that well presumably she as a writer has improved or progressed or changed over time. So Dave Abad or City of Brass will say her debut as far as I know and this is you know her fourth book. So I guess I would expect to see some progress in writing ability or some such but like otherwise I didn't really have expectations per se. So my initial impression of the book at the outset did begin to form some expectations that I didn't have before much to its detriment. So in the beginning of the book we have an author's note. It talks about well I guess I can just read it she was not very long it's just this little paragraph. So the author's note says please note that in the voice of the time and please in which this book takes place the Latin Christians of Western Europe are referred to as Franks and the Byzantines as the Rome. The novel's 12th century largely islamic societies of the northwestern Indian ocean. Literal had their own rich and fascinating way of describing antiquity their contemporaries and the wider world and though I've tried to recreate that here as accurately as possible this is the work of fiction. A glossary with additional historical and nautical terms can be found at the back as well as suggestions for further reading. So that sounds great that's exactly the kind of author's note that I want to see. I if this is going to be or if any book is going to be either historical fiction or historical fantasy meaning that it is still taking place in our world and it is drawing it is intended to be taking place in a world that's recognizably a specific place and time in our real world history. I like an indication from the author that says they've done some research they've made an effort to make it historically accurate as much as is possible. So we're told about these naming conventions we're told that you know she's done her best to to portray this time and place 12th century Middle East as accurately as possible but it is fiction so like to give it some grace and I'm like sure you got it you know I don't expect it to be a documentary. Liberties will be taken it's a fantasy but it certainly sounds like this is going to be again heavily researched and it's gonna make a pretty good effort to be historically accurate. Super excited to dive in like my expectations going in before reading the author's note Middle Eastern High seas adventure cool let's do it. Reading the author's note I was like all right this sounds like it's gonna be great and that author's note was both the first and the last time that I was super excited about this book because as soon as I began reading the book we open with soap boxing we open with extremely modern ideas of feminism we open with a quippy juvenile protagonist a la marvel we learned that there's going to be these cutesy fourth wall breaks and I quickly begin to hate it so why did I hate it besides everything that I just said so I personally care a lot about historicity and historical verisimilitude I was never gonna like this book but rather than this simply not being my cup of tea I was angered because my expectations were set so much higher because of the author's note we had these opening remarks that led me to believe that I should expect a great deal of attention to historical accuracy and detail again I would not like this book even without that author's note because I do care about that regardless but to set up my expectations that I that I'm going to get that and then to not deliver it is so much worse any day without chips and guac is just objectively a worse day but if you tell me I'm gonna get chips and guac and then I don't get it let's see it was way worse next the style of the humor again absolutely does not work for me which is extremely subjective quips do not equal wit the main character and frankly every other character had that exact same bland surface level modern juvenile quippy again marvel-esque style of humor which again does not work for me really ever but it also I find really undermines the readers or viewers in the case of marvel ability to take a character or a situation or a plot or a story or anything seriously next I think this book has a problem with telling over showing we are told by amina that amina is a badass that she is talented and daring that she's an individual that's faced and overcome incredible odds but we are not shown this and I think it comes off as having a very similar problem to a lot of YA which I complain about in YA and is one of the reasons I read much much less YA now than I used to is YA will have a character a protagonist that's an assassin that's a thief that's some kind of you know a criminal some kind of a cool badass thing like that but we can't root for the protagonist if they're really out there murdering people for money so either they'll have killed some people off screen before the events of the book take place so we don't really ever have to deal with it or everyone thinks they're killing people but really they're not or they have very good reasons for killing people actually because they only kill the actual bad guys never anyone that's good and you know if you're gonna have a main character that's a thief or a pirate or an assassin then they're gonna have to be morally great they're gonna have to do some things that the reader might find reprehensible like don't wimp out then if you're not okay with it then then don't make your protagonist an assassin a pirate a thief and here I feel like that's what we got um Amina the main character is a pirate a pirate in the 12th century a female pirate in the 12th century a middle-aged female pirate in the 12th century who has supposedly carved a place for herself in this man's world but she seems to be quite surprised anytime someone is cruel or callous or behaves in a way that is morally not great she's unwilling to be party to anything immoral it seems like she's like cosplaying pirate she's like a cw pirate not you know a real pirate and i gather this is fantasy but this is adult fantasy that i've been told by the author was heavily researched to get an authentic representation of 12th century middle eastern peoples and cultures and practices and it promised me too that there was a glossary of historical terms nautical terms i mean what what what research was done because Amina again seems to balk at anything immoral don't really see her doing anything terribly badass and we don't really see any high skill in seafaring i've frankly found Amina quite insufferable i found her quippy banter got real old real fast her cockiness seemed really unearned again see telling over showing her situation predicaments they felt oftentimes to be her fault through stupidity and naivety it seems hard to credit for a woman in her supposed position of having had to fight for this place for herself i mean if she's a respected and feared pirate in the 12th century like you know wouldn't expect her to be so naive and dumb much like myself my camera overheated so where was i um yeah she's not um believably a pirate which brings me to the seafaring element of this story which again the author's note indicated i should expect research and accuracy and this as well i mean i'm not gonna call shannon chakraborty a liar but i don't feel like any research whatsoever was done at least in in terms of the the nautical side of things at one point we were told that an older male relative of amina's used to tell her stories of his exploits and adventures on the high seas and that this is what enabled her to run off and run away and like take up a life at sea for herself because she applied what she'd learned from his stories like did his stories include meticulous detail as to like how to actually sail and a ship how to how to run a ship because i mean i don't think those would have been very interesting stories but if they didn't i really failed to see how his stories of his life at sea would have enabled her realistically to sail a ship like if this story was written more in the style of like um an old legend an old tale you know the way that um the winter night trilogy tries it has kind of like old-timey vibe it feels more like a legend and fairy tale than like a novel or if it was written more like i don't know song of achilles or sursy things like that where there's a lot of sort of like fairy tale logic that's going on in a fairy tale in a legend in a Homeric epic to say that like the hero like listened to tales of the seas and then went to the sea himself like that's the shape of the storytelling that i expect to see and something like this but here she's it doesn't feel like an old legend or an old tale she's literally telling you oh yeah grandpa used to tell me i don't actually remember was her grandpa i think it was her grandpa she was like yeah grandpa used to tell me all of his stories of his you know days on the high seas so i ran away and because i had told me all those stories that now i knew what to do and i could i could also live on the open ocean and it's like there's there's so many practical aspects to actually being at sea that i would imagine would not be included in a story if one is trying to entertain their audience you know what i mean that being the explanation for how amina is able to go off and and go live at sea because like who would teach a girl you know how to how to sail but you know oh she had these stories so that's how she knew it's like but but no the sea and and seafaring and being on a ship and whatnot in this book it feels it's more of a means of getting from place to place not a site in itself for adventuring or altercation or cleverness i mean it doesn't do any super clever like nautical stuff or or any or anything like that i mean i am not an expert i've been on a boat like twice in my life maybe it might even legitimately be twice anyway yeah i don't claim to be an expert but i certainly have read and watched a lot of books and movies and shows that do take place at sea so like i wouldn't be able to tell if it's correct or not but i would be able to tell how much effort was put into like creating a scenario and telling me all these details about life at sea cool maneuvers to like outpace uh an opponent who's on another ship or to be able to trick an attacker um with some kind of again cool strategy cool seafaring strategy for example a Horatio hornblower is an all-time favorite of mine and i love watching all the ways that Horatio is able to outsmart the enemy who's on another ship and again i have no idea if that sound strategy or what he's saying is actually what somebody on a ship would do i kind of take for granted that it is but there's like a lot of thought pot put into that and that's what a lot of the story is about is him being clever in in sailing and there just simply isn't anything like that in this book like they're vaguely on a ship they're on a ship the way that somebody on a soap opera or a cw ship would be on a ship where there's just like vaguely a ship-like backdrop you know what i mean if research was done into like how ships were sailed in the 12th century and what strategies were employed by the sailors in getting from place to place and surviving and attacking if any of that was researched i don't think that research made it into any part of this book which then brings me to historicity and again the vernacular the attitudes the social norms and this book are all incredibly modern and do not tell me that you cannot tell a feminist story in historical time period without making it anachronistically modernly feminist that is not true and if you're going to tell me that oh it's so fun that this book decided to fantasize about an alternate history where it was just super modern and feminist and whatever well it didn't because one the author did tell us that you know research was done to make this feel authentic with the 12th century i mean apparently but also this book tells us that this society is extremely patriarchal it doesn't really show that but amina rails against the patriarchy all the time so this isn't an alternate history where things just are kind of feminist and liberal they're not because amina gets to be mad about how they're not and how she stands out and how she's had to fight for her place because that's not something that a woman typically would be able or allowed to do she would have no patriarchy to rail against if this is some alternate feminist version of history there are examples in history of women and other historically marginalized and disenfranchised people being able to do things that defy the odds that defy expectations that defy what they what society would have said they were allowed to do people that have carved places for themselves in ways that was not expected or permitted and no you don't have to limit yourself to telling true stories to only the people that did actually do those things and then you can tell that story because otherwise it would be unbelievable that's not what i'm saying at all but those stories are a great guide a great example a great inspiration and an indication that it is possible to do something that would feel unbelievable or unlikely given a certain time period and the norms and expectations and culture of the time yes it is more work yes you have to be more creative to come up with a way for a fictional character to be able to defy the odds in that way but it is possible to come up with ways to say okay this is what existed at the time these would have been the laws these would have been the norms these would have been the beliefs this is what this is how people would have thought and behaved about whatever issues at the time so if my character based on that would not have been allowed would not have been um it would not have been kindly looked upon would not have had access to etc these things how might a person in that time period have gone about you know working around that or evading it or confronting it or what might need to be in place for them to be able to do so can that be part of my fantasy where it is specifically a magical element that enables them to overcome this historically you know patriarchal setup or something like that do they use magic to shape shift into a masculine looking person so that they can pretend to be a man when they need to you know there's there's things you can do especially if you're writing fantasy and yes again this is more challenging than just saying well i'm just gonna write a story where they can't not thinking about how it might have what they might have needed to do to do this back in the day just because someone didn't do this specific thing back in the day just because we don't have a real historical example of someone being able to accomplish this does not mean that someone could not have so to do the thought experiment of okay so how might one have achieved that how might one have defied the odds and done this what that's a story that i definitely want to read that's way more interesting to me and it takes a lot more creativity and effort to come up with a way that someone might have done that and they could have and they did we have historical examples of people defying the odds and if you are not interested in the project of thinking creatively about history in this way about what was theoretically possible at a historical time even if there is no example of someone doing that specific thing i mean why bother setting your story in a historical time period in our world even with you if you add magic to it i mean why not just write your own secondary world where the rules or whatever you say they are the culture is whatever you say it is why do this thing of saying oh i'm setting it in our actual 12th century middle east but i'm adding magic to it but so i am attempting to recreate this historical time period per the author's note why do that if you have no interest in actually doing that because you don't have to have an interest in doing that that's what i'd like to see but if you're not going to be doing that then just write a fantasy world why why why pretend like you're interested in writing about history okay so why is this book so popular because as far as i can tell even though it's not been out for very long people seem to feel that it was justly hyped that it is great and chakra boardy has done it again well a lot of people like the kind of quippy shallow banter that i despise and just look at marvel the numbers don't lie a lot of people don't care about historicity i would argue most people don't i definitely do that's why i said i would never have liked this book because it didn't care about that i wouldn't have been as angry about it if it hadn't pretended to care but again most people just don't care a lot of people don't mind soap boxing i do i don't care if i agree with it in fact i'll probably be more annoyed with it if i do agree with your position because i'll feel that you're doing a disservice to this argument or to this position or whatever it is so yeah that that bothers me a lot of people are not bothered by that people apparently are not interested in in nautical strategy again i'm not an expert in it but i love seeing stories that do know something about that i really really enjoy that and i was hoping that if this seafaring adventure was as well researched as shannon chakra boardy says that it was i was looking forward to having some interesting nautical shenanigans and i think people are pleased by the fact that this is about a sexually liberated older muslim woman who was a mother rather than a young cis white dude who's single and ready to mingle and i'll give it this much at least this mediocre fantasy isn't by and about another white dude in a European western inspired story so yay for that for the fact of that but that doesn't i hate a lot of mediocre white dude fantasies so i don't think it should come as a huge surprise that i don't like this book very much so in conclusion people can like what they like i'm brought like i said i'm broadly pleased that there is more and more diverse representation both in terms of authorship and characters in stories in sfx that is all to the good when it comes to books i am in the minority on most things there are plenty of extremely popular and beloved books that i hate but if the book had wanted to please specifically me there are some things it could have done it could have made amina 12 years old take out any references to sex and to make the daughter a little sister or something like that and just make this book a middle grade adventure and basically change nothing about it except for references to sex in the age of the character i think it i would have disliked it a lot less and the juvenile nature of the banter and the characters and the simplicity of things would bother me less if i was like oh but this is middle grade um or it could have made a greater effort to recreate this historical era and to come up with ways for amina's existence as an independent woman and as a pirate at this time to be believable we would have seen you know her earn her reputation before our eyes so this badassery of hers that we would really see that we'd witness that come to the conclusion ourselves that she's a badass or leave the book pretty much as is but take out the quippy juvenile banter and set it in a secondary world don't pretend that this is a fantastical version of a real historical time and place in our real world just make it a fantasy world take out the banter and leave it pretty much as is and i'd be okay-ish with it but if we've learned nothing else surely we've learned that my tastes are not a good indication of majority opinion so it's probably wise for an author to not concern themselves with what would please me if they want to be commercially successful have you read the adventures of amina al-sirafi did you enjoy it did you dislike it did you hate it did you visit your new favorite whatever you let me know i post videos on saturdays other random times relatively saturdays while i can subscribe to my patreon if you feel so inclined and i'll see you when i see you bye