The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)

by Shannon Chakraborty

though, strangely, they have little compunction when it comes to spreading vicious rumors about her body and her sexuality: these things that men obsess over when they hate what they desire and desire what they cannot possess.

that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered.

But fortunately—fortunately?—the seemingly alive and possibly malevolent sea-foam was glowing.

For while the pious claim money doesn’t buy happiness, I can attest from personal experience that poverty buys nothing. It is a monster whose claws grow deeper and more difficult to escape with each passing season, with even the slightest misstep setting you back years, if not forever.

“‘He who dares does while he who fears fails,’”

“I stole nothing, you impotent mule. Where are your witnesses?” I insisted. “I have such a right!” “My cuff plainly fell out of your sleeve,” Yusuf pointed out. “Then perhaps it should not have been there!”

Actually laughing

“You’d be amazed the things I can do when fleeing prison.”

Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman.

For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.

How do you think I felt being stared at by the glass eyes of a dozen long-dead creatures and surrounded by stone penises all day?

Fussy babies answer to no authority.)

if God had not meant for such diversity, he would have made us all alike.

“Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs, but that does not mean that which makes us us is gone. And I hope . . . part of me hopes anyway that in seeing me do this, Marjana knows more is possible. I would not want her to believe that because she was born a girl, she cannot dream.”

Stop ogling a demon’s ass. Ogling a demon’s ass is what got you into all these troubles in the first place.

Maybe that makes me a monster, but are not all mothers capable of being monsters when it comes to their children?

People may call my kind sea rats, but let me tell you, rats know when to fucking run.

You do realize that if you want to be a proper storyteller, your words need to flow like warm honey, not choke like the stones of a dry academic.

“Oh, fuck off, you fish-brained wizard.”

“It is not always easy to do the right thing, Amina al-Sirafi. More often than not, it is a lonely, thankless ordeal. That does not mean it is not worth doing.”

“You ungrateful oversized bug,” I cried, “I am trying to free you!”

God knows best the inner life of leviathan-esque monsters).