This middle grade book is about Sabrena who is still getting used to her family's recent move and her new responsibilities of grandma-sitting. Sabrena's father and grandmother are storytellers, and spend time weaving stories about The 40 Thieves and Sinbad to Sabrena, linking her to part of her heritage.

While a little slow in the beginning, it really picks up as Sabrena and her friends Marjana and Idris undergo a fantastical adventure befitting Middle Eastern folklore.

On her adventure, Sabrena, who is often overlooked in her family's new life, is able to rise to the occasion, show that she can stand up for herself, be a leader amongst her friends, and be as good a storyteller as her father.

I gave this 4 stars because it found its groove and kept me interested once her adventure started. Also, the cover is delicate and beautiful.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins Children's Books for this ARC.

I went into Sabrena Swept Away knowing it was a middlegrade fantasy but I seem to have skipped over the part where it is a partial retelling of some of the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights. Partial. After having finished the book, I would have actually liked to see this become a more full retelling of at least one story from the original, rather than three spliced parts in one story. This is a little critical as this is a middle grade book, but due to the many directions Karuna Riazi decided to take in the novel, I feel it lessened the impact of the story.

Don't get me wrong, Sabrena Swept Away had an important message, as it revolved around Sabrena's grandmother who is afflicted with dementia and going downhill fast. The primary focus of Sabrena's story is her relationship with her grandmother and the stories they tell to grow a connection between one another. However, I feel Riazi did not push more into the family dynamics of a Muslim/Bangladeshi family. Throughout the story I was never able to pinpoint Sabrena's exact age and therefore had trouble discerning what exactly is her role in the family outside of essentially grounding grandma as no one else was able to do it the way she could. The family culture was stripped down to the bare bones in order to shift the perspective onto the grandparent-grandchild relationship, which honestly isn't a aspect that is written about extensively.

Furthermore, when Sabrena is finally "swept away", her connection to her family is tenuous and comes for fleeting moments. Instead, she is focused on the survival of the here and now. As one does when your situation drastically changes. But then the pacing seemed to get out of whack as Sabrena continued to go on adventure after adventure, and making shallow relationships that helped her develop. Personally, I rarely find other fleeting people in my life to leave a lasting impression, so I don't understand how Sabrena will continue to keep them in her memories when she was only in the fictional world for what, two or three days? By slowing down the story, the readers could have spent more time with Sabrena's current relationships and comparing them with the new ones in the opposing world. Really, I felt the opening sequence was so much stronger introducing the setting and the main conflict... I lost interest quickly after Sabrena entered 1001 Arabian Nights.

Regardless, I feel Sabrena Swept Away will be important for the right person, and I hope they are able to find it when they need it. My eyes still welled up with tears at the concluding chapter, but I can't help wishing for a more lasting memory to carry away from this story.

Sabrena Swept Away is a solid middle grade read, and my library is likely to add it to our collection. It has several strong points that help with diverse representation, including strong family structure and intergenerational families coping with dementia. I particularly admire the way in which the main character's Muslim identity, attendance at a Muslim school, and extended family structure ("aunties" and "uncles", norm of families with many children) was respectfully treated and given enough detail without exoticizing religion as strange or different. I also think that there's a continued shortage of Muslim characters in middle grade fiction, and a continuing need to seek out books with diverse representation.

I enjoyed the tie-ins to A Thousand and One Nights, the storytelling, and the underwater descriptions.

My reason for the three star rating is because I feel that Sabrena Swept Away needed a more decisive division between realistic fiction and fantasy. Both the realistic elements and the fantastic elements occupied so much page space that the need to delineate two very distinct settings used too much exposition. This was less than ideal for a rather short book. Because of extended exposition and two distinct and detailed worlds, I think character development and action/adventure sequences both received less attention. I think the book would have been more enjoyable and stronger if it had chosen to emphasize one setting, not both, and devoted less time to exposition.

I absolutley loved this book! I was gripped into the story as soon as I started and finished it in one sitting. I loved the authors writing style because it made it very easy to read and follow the plot. The characters were very unique but there journey was amazing and extremely satisfying to read. I will be recommending this book to all of my family and friends.

I’ve been searching for an adventure book set on the sea so I was excited to read Sabrena Swept Away. I love how the author sets the stage with a girl and her grandma who is a storyteller. Sabrena knows the stories that run in her blood of the Arabian Nights. Sinbad, the sailor, is a relative!
Sabrena starts finding puddles of water that appear out of nowhere and then a flood outside the school auditorium sweeps her into a grand adventure where she meets others who she needs to help along the way.
This is a fun adventure that takes our main character back in time to a watery world where her grandma’s stories come alive and in which she becomes a hero.
I would have liked this novel to slow down a bit so that I could have become more emotional connected to the main character but if you are looking for a fun adventure at sea, Sabrena Swept Away is a great pick.

I really enjoyed this! Sabrena is having a difficult time at a new school and also dealing with her beloved story-telling grandmother’s decline. Her father claims they are descended from the legendary sailor Sinbad. Her grandmother makes no claims but shows her over and over that they are story tellers and that the sea calls to them. When the sea calls Sabrena she is swept away into the land of One Thousand and One Nights.
Fantastic adventure, great adventure and surprises. I hope there are more stories for Sabrena.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for this DRC.
#SabrenaSweptAway #NetGalley

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC to review! I thought that it was a very quick read that didn't lag in between the pages. I thought that there was good representation for the characters and I enjoyed seeing the myths come to life. I thought that the writing could be improved on.

I really enjoyed this as a descendant of Sinbad the sailor, it uses that concept perfectly and was hooked from the first page. The characters had that charm that I was looking for from this type of book. Karuna Riazi has a strong writing style and had that charm that I was looking for and enjoyed in the genre.

Children's books and middle grade are not normally my bailiwick, but I was hooked by the absolutely stunning cover illustration, and the concept seemed neat, once I read the blurb. I guess we'll see how I do, reviewing a category I have not read in a very long time.

And the book itself in fact proved a fun one, quick-paced and warmhearted right down at its core. Sabrena was a good character, easy to relate to, but not without her flaws or depth. For a bit there, I was worried that she'd turn out to be a bit of a pinball, as others around her inevitably helped her and came to her rescue, but by the time the climax came around, she grew, and boy did she step up!

I enjoyed reading about the Bangladeshi-American Muslim culture Sabrena grew up steeped in, which, of course, tied into growing up on the stories of 1001 Nights. Or at least a kid-friendly version of same. Fun fact: my own family owned the 16-volume unsanitized version, and it was the only book my mom ever forbade me from reading, as an overly precocious tot. Which, of course, made it all the more enticing, but whoooo boy, mom was right, that was NOT for seven year olds! Obviously, this would be way outside the scope of a real-life children's book, but a part of me really wants to read Sabrena's father's perspective on how he might balance nurturing his daughter's love for the stories he's studying, potentially exploring some of their darker elements as part of critical reading, all while being careful not to traumatize her or give her access to something REALLY age-inappropriate.

Going back to the cultural aspect, I think seeing Sabrena and her family in a book like this would be really valuable for either a Muslim kid looking for a character whose life reflects theirs, or a curious young reader from outside the culture. The portrayal is immersive, straightforward without being overly simplistic, and clearly written by someone with personal experience.

But the element of this book I really could not have anticipated when I began was Sabrena's relationship with her grandmother. The empathy and verisimilitude with which it was written was something truly special. The portrayal of an elder with dementia was top-notch, incredibly believable, never sugar-coated, but also never once stripping the character of her humanity, spark, or bond with her family. I was not surprised to read, in the afterword, that Riazi put a lot of her own love for her own grandparents into her writing.

This is a book about stories, but it's also, at its core, a book about families. I was glad to see the warmth of Riazi's familial portrayal extend beyond the nuclear family, to grandparents, adopted families, good stepparents, and former strangers willing to open their homes and hearts to a lost child.

I may not have been this book's target audience, but I still think there's a lot to like here, whether for me, or an actual middle grade reader.

Thank you NetGalley and Greenwillow Books for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions within are my own.