Lexi's Updates en-US Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:54:16 -0700 60 Lexi's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg GiveawayRequest699586642 Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:54:16 -0700 <![CDATA[<a href="/user/show/75357893-lexi">Lexi</a> entered a giveaway]]> /giveaway/show/402937-the-house-of-last-resort The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden
20 copies available, ends on April 15, 2025
Enter to win ]]> GiveawayRequest699586613 Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:54:11 -0700 <![CDATA[<a href="/user/show/75357893-lexi">Lexi</a> entered a giveaway]]> /giveaway/show/403107-the-farmhouse The Farmhouse by Chelsea Conradt
20 copies available, ends on May 01, 2025
Enter to win ]]> ReadStatus9286849819 Tue, 08 Apr 2025 14:10:45 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi started reading 'Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism']]> /review/show/7429925003 Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams Lexi started reading Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
]]> Review5219210495 Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:00:08 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi added 'The Ashfire King']]> /review/show/5219210495 The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah Lexi gave 4 stars to The Ashfire King (The Sandsea Trilogy, #2) by Chelsea Abdullah
I had a tough time ratings and reviewing this book for possibly stupid reasons. The Ashfire King is the very very long awaited sequel to The Stardust Thief. There was a huge gap between the first and second book, but it wasn't terribly hard to get caught back up. The Ashfire King is a mostly good book with some small flaws that prevented it from being a 5 star read.

Much like the first book, Ashfire focuses on action and adventure- taking the scope of a 1970s-80s fantasy while injecting it into complex and relatable characters. We have 3 major POVs- Loulie, Aisha, and Mazen.

Most of the book takes place in the world of the djinn, where our heroes find themselves trapped and unable to get back to the world that Omar is now ravaging at the surface. In a world abandoned by the Ashfire King, revealed as Loulie's faithful bodyguard Qadir, the world of Djinn is in a state of chaos as different faction leaders are in a constant state of war and unrest.

Meanwhile. Aisha chases Omar to extract her revenge on him.

The thing I love most about this series is the scope, character can travel across worlds, through wholly new cultures, and the universe truly feels baked and lived in. Chelsea Abdullah is a master at non overwhelming world building- she doesn't need to explain what every plant or food item is because her dreamy fairy tale universe operates very well exactly how it is- yet you still feel like you learn a lot about it and how it operates.

This is most certainly a middle book. with the primary focus not really being on our main villain- this is basically a very, very long side quest and COULD have been removed completely. Regardless, what I liked about it is that it still felt like there were critical stakes, and I don't mind if a story isn't relevant as much to the main plot if its still feels fundamentally interesting. One of the strengths of The Sandsea Trilogy is having this odd "Saturday morning cartoon" for grown ups feeling- I would comp it to a series like Trigun in this regard. So was most of this book strictly necessary? No, but it was still meaningful and fun.

Loulie was amazing as always, and Aisha easily had the story's best chapters and strongest character development. Focusing for a moment on Aisha's plotline, we REALLY get to know her in this book, and if you are partial to morally grey characters, I find her to be an absolute treat in this book- especially because she is our only eyes into a secondary plot.

Regardless, characters are where I struggled with this installment. Qadir, arguably the most popular character of the series, is missing for most of the book. No POV, not a lot of checking in. I thought his absence was handled well, but pulling your best character out of the action for that long certainly doesn't add to the book's positive traits.

Mazen was my second issue. I mentioned in the first book I didn'r feel his POV added much, and my opinion has not changed. Mazen doesn't really have anything to learn- he feels like Abdullah's pet character who is always morally sound, makes good choices, and his failures are cleaned up well. Hes boring, basically. His only character growth between two books is focused on learning to like- value himself more as a prince, and even that is not touched on much. Mazen is a character who the plot often happens to, not a character who drives it. When the coolest thing about him in 2 books is that in book 2 he gets a dope pet bird, thats an issue for me. I found his chapters boring yet again.

Additionally, Chelsea Abdullah's ultimate choice for who to put into a romantic relationship was...awful. I knew there would be romance in this book due to an AMA answer she has provided last year, and was hoping the slow burn would result in something cool. The character chosen for the romance (you can probably guess based on whats negative about this review) was awful, and any scenes meant to be romantic felt hollow and completely void of chemistry. Thank god its not a huge focus of the book, because it would be enough to turn me off the series.

Despite these flaws, I did really enjoy my time reading the Ashfire King. Sandsea series is basically popcorn plus- its all of the fun of reading genres that are meant to turn your brain off, but with the added benefit of really cool cultural elements, interesting characters, and excellent storytelling. This series is begging for an animated adaptation!


3.5/5 ]]> UserChallenge62993838 Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:57:22 -0700 <![CDATA[ Lexi has challenged herself to read 100 books in 2025. ]]> /user/show/75357893-lexi 11627
She has read 26 books toward her goal of 100 books.
 
26 of 100 (26%)
Create your own 2025 Reading Challenge » ]]> Review7459082203 Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:57:13 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi added 'Our Winter Monster']]> /review/show/7459082203 Our Winter Monster by Dennis A Mahoney Lexi gave 2 stars to Our Winter Monster (Hardcover) by Dennis A Mahoney
]]> Review7182793725 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 08:42:06 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi added 'A Fate Forged in Fire']]> /review/show/7182793725 A Fate Forged in Fire by Hazel McBride Lexi gave 3 stars to A Fate Forged in Fire (Hardcover) by Hazel McBride
bookshelves: enemies-to-lovers-cat-fishing
πŸ‘Ž Enemies to lovers

πŸ‘« Matriarch VS patriarch societies

πŸ‰ Dragons

πŸ‘‘ A fight for the throne

� Farce Marriage

⭐⭐ Read more of my reviews and get tips on the best Enemies to Lovers books by checking out my Blog, ⭐⭐

Well this was one of the biggest rug pulls i've had in awhile. A Fate Forced In Fire was on its way to getting accolades from me until about the 50% mark. Sadly, this trope stuffed disappointment decided to commit to pulling marketing concepts out of a bag instead of telling an original story.

A Fate Forged in Fire is a romantasy focusing on a society that was once proudly ruled by powerful women- but the lack of royal female births has caused dark societal changes. A patriarchal and hateful religion adopted by the royal family is spiraling the world into a new dark age.

Aemyra is not in direct line for the throne, and has been raised in secret among the people, but has always been trained to rule. She and her family decide that now is their time to rise up and take the throne, but first, she must go through prince Fiorean and the sitting royal family.

This is clearly House of the Dragon inspired, and the plot is actually super cool. I started the book very engaged with the world's politics and feminist themes. Theres some "girlboss" elements to it, but I found it genuinely compelling, with clear and direct parallels to the threats women in the united states are experiencing today by Conservatives. Seeing the radicalized characters in the world interact with the remnants of the faithful to the goddess is chilling, and probably one of the more interesting subplots i've seen in a romantasy.

The first half of the book feels expansive, with a fairy large cast of characters. The royal family is introduced; starting with the second in line prince Fiorean, who is an explosive and deeply loyal to his family and willing to kill for them. His brother is an icy fuck up (Aegon anyone?) and his mother is a religious zealot. Fiorean's introduction to Aemyra starts off promising a truly hateful enemies to lovers story.

Aemyra's family is introduced; both her adopted and biological. Her dynamics with her father and brother are pretty interesting, and the early stages of the story paint Aemyra as half heroic and half fanatical- obsessed with her right to the throne almost single mindedly. I thought this was a really cool character flaw for a female main character.

The second half of the book feels like a completely different book. I was shocked, upset, disturbed, and disappointed. Folks who drool over low quality romantasy will probably LOVE THIS, as the book's second half delivers on your standard trope fare, but if you were at all moved by the first half of the book and reading a book for tropes isn't your thing, prepare for disappointment.

All of the characters quickly get lobotomized when Aemyra is captured behind enemy lines. Her personality flaws diminish and she is replaced with a plucky main character with no real unique traits. Fiorean shifts quite quickly to standard book boyfriend guy- misunderstood, protective, and obsessed with Aemyra. More on the disappointing romance soon.

Its hard to describe the other characters because they soon fade to the background, popping up only briefly to move along the romance between the main characters.

And of course, the tropes, largely absent in part one really start to show themselves. Forced marriage plot, forced knife to throat scene, forced ball scene, forced "touch her and die" scene- pretty much every single snoozy TikTok beat you can imagine is hamfisted into the second half of the book. While part 1 flows very gracefully, part 2 feels like someone wrote a bunch of scenes for a fanfiction and lazily stitched them together.

Of course, this is done at its worst with the romance. Do not get tricked like I did into thinking this will be a REAL enemies to lovers romance. As soon as the leads are forced to engage with each other, the whole thing falls apart. Fiorean's complex character turns into a misunderstood sad boy that actually isn't terribly loyal to his family- it turns out hes always been against their atrocities and just feels so very abused by them.

The characters drop their guard within a few chapters and find themselves working together, swooning, and empathizing with each other. What made this book strong is that both characters had a genuine reason to oppose the other having power, but this is washed away for the sake of getting the characters to have sex. While the author pretends to care about making the characters mistrust each other, its all say rather than "do". The characters constantly express mistrust all while being genuinely interested in each other and never really opposing each other.

I can not express my disappointment in A Fate Forged in Fire. It feels like the author sold out some great concepts in order to be the same as everyone else writing in this genre. What had the opportunity to be a stand out book became another detestable copy of a copy. If you are someone who adores books like Fourth Wing, ACOTAR, etc, and aren't sick of all of their clones; you will absolutely love this book. For the rest of readers, this is probably the ultimate catfish, and it will leave you feeling betrayed. ]]> ReadStatus9262593088 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 08:41:22 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi wants to read 'Mark Twain']]> /review/show/7456570081 Mark Twain by Ron Chernow Lexi wants to read Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
]]> ReadStatus9262583582 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 08:38:31 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi wants to read 'The Incandescent']]> /review/show/7456563137 The Incandescent by Emily Tesh Lexi wants to read The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
]]> Rating842986862 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 07:35:33 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexi liked a review]]> /
Lexi liked Chris's review of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism:
Cultish by Amanda Montell
"CULTISH is among the smartest, moist astute, and (sometimes) funniest books I have read lately. Amanda Montell brilliantly walks us through the language of cults, her research thorough and thought-provoking, and makes us realize that the very word "cult" is insufficient to convey the differences between a "cult" that leads to hundreds of people dying far from home and one that is all about fitness and leggings. I loved this book, every anecdote, every observation, every page. I picked it up as research for a novel I'm writing, but -- like the best research books I read when immersed in a novel -- quickly became the sort of wonderful book that transcended work for me."
]]>