I’ve found one of “those lines” again, a passage from a book that resonates with me so perfectly and precisely that I feel the author is speaking directly to me. It appears in the thirteenth chapter of Shannon Chakraborty’s swashbuckling Arabian Nights fantasy The Adventures of Amina Al-Sifari, when the title character, a middle-aged sea captain called out of retirement to rescue a young woman from the clutches of a power-hungry sorcerer, is bonding with her former navigator’s wife, Nasteho, over their mutual need to raise their children with love and care yet still hold onto something of their own.

“Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs,” Amina tells Nasteho, “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 [her daughter] knows more is possible. I would not want her to believe that because she was born a girl, she cannot dream.” (184)

Amina’s conflict here is not my conflict. I’ve written in this space before about my decision not to become a mother and the factors that went into it, so I don’t need to go into a great amount of detail on the matter again. Yet a character doesn’t have to represent me fully in order to speak to me, and and it brought me joy when I heard Amina put into clear, common-sense language something we’d all do well to understand: motherhood does not, and should not, swallow a woman’s identity whole. She doesn’t stop being a person with interests, ideas, and, yes, ambitions of her own, and any demand for full self-abnegation is unreasonable. Amina wants to be a good mother to her daughter, and her love for Marjana and desire to protect her is a major driving force throughout the narrative. But part of that, as she says, lies in showing the girl that she can do anything, be anything, she chooses. One of the crucial tasks of feminism lies in making certain that the question we start asking our children when they’re around five years old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, is just as relevant for little girls as it is for little boys. Thanks to Amina’s example, that question will be plenty relevant for young Marjana, and that gladdens me.

This isn’t the only thing I love about Chakraborty’s heroine, who has one a spot among my favorite characters in the fantasy genre. First, even though Amina is a bit of a rogue and doesn’t always, or even often, play by the rules, she has a strong moral sense, being fiercely loyal to her seafaring companions and strongly protective of the young woman she has set out to rescue. She might initially take on the rescue mission out of a desire to protect her family, whom the girl’s grandmother vows to destroy if Amina doesn’t do what she wants, but she quickly sees that the villain — a truly loathsome piece of work — must be stopped, for the greater as well as the “lesser” good. For all her flaws, she is a hero, always delightful to see in this Age of Grimdark.

Also, Amina sometimes gets in over her head. Sometimes she’s at a loss to see how she’ll get out of certain situations. Yet she remains tenacious, determined, and above all, resourceful (as I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite traits in a heroine). The fact that she sometimes needs help makes her Crowning Moments of Awesome (TV Tropes) all the more rewarding.

Furthermore, despite her non-traditional calling, Amina isn’t a “Not Like Other Girls” kind of woman, which pleases me in particular because it would have been so easy for Chakraborty to go that route, as other authors have done with female characters who play “masculine” roles. While I do wish Dalila the Poisoner were not the only woman in her crew, at no point in the narrative does Amina express contempt or even disapproval towards women who have made different choices. Nasteho could have been just the wife of Majed the navigator, begging him to stay home with his family and reject the dangerous mission — after all, haven’t we seen this hundreds of times before? — but instead, she and Amina become friends. Amina’s developing bond with Dunya, the girl she rescues, also plays a vital role in the story; as we learn more about Dunya, we see Amina evolving into the kind of mentor we all wish we could have.

In short, Amina Al-Sifari is well worth spending time with, and she’s surrounded by an engaging cast of supporting characters. The world is both richly detailed and agreeably lived-in, and the plot engrossing, as these characters we care about face ever more dangerous obstacles. Five rollicking stars.