#The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

[betterbooksandthings]

"Excellent epic fantasy debuts are a glorious thing to behold. I love to see new authors on the scene make their first public attempts at crafting magical struggles or impossible quests. It is a difficult subgenre to pull off, and so it is even more impressive when they make a splash.

As a subgenre of high fantasy, epic fantasy must take place in an alternate world with fantastical (i.e., magical and/or otherworldly) elements and involve complex geopolitical plots and/or multi-step quests. Although they are not requirements of the subgenre, epic fantasy books have also come to include multiple point-of-view characters, maps, and pronunciation keys as well.

The subgenre is largely inspired by early epic poetry like Beowulf, the Illiad, or the Odyssey. These are long narrative poems that involve a hero’s journey against large threats across kingdoms, realms, or states. Taking inspiration from the fantastical epic poems, epic fantasy books have larger-than-life stakes as well.

This list of 10 excellent epic fantasy debuts dives into authors who debuted in epic fantasy recently. Many great epic fantasy books were, unfortunately, not the author’s debut and thus have been omitted from this list. I also limited the series to the last decade because I wanted to give some love to recent releases readers might have missed on the shelves. I highly recommend giving these epic fantasy debuts a go."

[bookcub]

Book Rec of Djinn . . .Jinn. .. Jinni. . .

Rated on how likely the jinn would be my friend

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah- Qadir is the jinn with the largest role and I cannot decide if he would find me mildly amusing or mildly annoying. Either way, he would probably not be talkative and not view me as a threat or a priority.

5/10

The Daevabad Trilogy by SA Chakraborty- While the term djinn is a controversial one in this world, there are plenty of djinn to choose from. Nahri might be my friend, if she didn't see me as an easy mark (which is very likely). I would very much enjoy her company if she didn't have her defenses up. Ali would probably find me interesting as a human and ask me a mixture of interesting and boring questions. Both would care if I died, unlike Dara, who wouldn't care if he accidentally caused my death.

6/10

A Master of Djinn by P Djeli Clark- I don't want to cause any spoilers but our main djinn would absolutely find me adorable, if not easily manipulated. We could definitely have a few fun nights for sure.

7/10

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi- Alizah would 1000% defend me with her life and successfully save it, but I am uncertain how receptive she would be to friendship, considering how guarded she is. I, however, would absolutely put in the effort for her.

7.5/10

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir- If I remember book two correctly, I would absolutely never become friends with this jinn. And I think they would actively want to kill me.

0/10

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker - Ahmed would not be friends with me and be very very rude to me, although he would not kill me. I would rather be friends with Chava, the golem instead. We would be besties.

1/10

Nayra and the Djinn by Iasmin Omar Ata-

Majan is a delight and I think we are likely to get along fairly well, although certainly not to the extent Nayra and Marjan have bonded. But we could tell each other stories and reignite some of the spark in each other's lives, encouraging exploration and connection. A fun and emotional time!!

8/10

[ohwarnette]

If there is only to be one more tale tonight, let it be the one about the storyteller who changed her fate with her fables. Let it be a story about stories and the power they have to sway mortal hearts.

[tinynavajoreads]

Just One More Page's March Book Photo Challenge

March 1, 2023 - TBR This Month

I saw this pop up on my feed and I'm trying to find smaller ways to participate more in the booklr community. And I knew that I had a lot of books that I had acquired recently, and these are only part of what's on my to-be-read list, but ones that I figured I could read this month. Or, at least, make an attempt at reading. We'll see how far I actually get.

First on my TBR is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I have read this book before, but this time around it's for the Traveling Book Project being put in by @just0nemorepage and I'm excited for it!

The rest of the list is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket, The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah, Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, and Book of Night by Holly Black.

What's your TBR for this month? Do you plan one? Or just get what feels like you'll most read at the moment? I usually do what I feel like I'll read, but I do have a rough idea of books I would like to read.

[just0nemorepage]

The Stardust Thief || Chelsea Abdullah || The Sandsea Trilogy #1 || 468 pages Top 3 Genres: Fantasy / Retellings / Young Adult

Synopsis: Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan’s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie’s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

Publication Date: May 2022. / Average Rating: 4.01. / Number of Ratings: ~23,960.

[romanathree]

The Midnight Merchant ⭐️

[lizarazoart]

The Stardust Thief

[checkoutmybookshelf]

OMG YOU GUYS FINALLY!!! I loved The Stardust Thief and I'm psyched we finally have a release date for The Ashfire King!!!

[libertyreads]

March Wrap Up 2024--

What a month that was. Did I read more than what I was supposed to? Yes. Am I mad about it? No. My goal for the year is to stay between 52 and 104 books read which means I need to read roughly 8 books per month (technically 8.6 or something like that) at the maximum. All this basically means is that I have to stick to reading 8 books next month. I blame the fact that my library hold came in 2 weeks early and I really didn't want to get back in line for it since it took so long to come in. Let's get to what I read and what I rated what I read.

Comics/Graphic Novels-- 1. Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo--3.75 stars (original rating).

Novellas-- 1. Must Love Hockey by Sarina Bowen (Kindle)--3.75 stars.

2. The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark (NetGalley)--4 stars.

Novels-- 1. No Coincidence by Rafat Kosik--1.75 stars.

2. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu--3 stars.

3. The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah--3.75 stars.

4. Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (Library)--4 stars.

5. Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes (NetGalley)--3.25 stars.

6. The Foxglove King by Hannah F. Whitten--4.25 stars (original rating).

The average star rating for the month ended up being 3.5 stars which was such a surprise given that this is the month with my worst rated book of the year so far. Not too shabby though.

[bekah-reading]

Not me having friends that ask for a recommendation and I am shamelessly dropping The Stardust Thief every chance I get. I really want more people I know to read it so I can talk about it.

[box-keeper]

Neither here nor there but long ago...

[ismahanescorner]

Book Haul | 📚🩵

the newest editions to my biblio-family!! 

🌟 The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah (very excited to read an Arabian fantasy written by an actual Arab author!!!) 😁😁😁

❣️Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (heard loads of good stuff about this one!!)

⛺️ Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert (the hype got to me, hopefully it’s worth it!)

⛱️ Every Summer After by Carley Fortune (literally have no idea what this is about!)

♦️Solitaire by Alice Oseman (i loved everything i read by this author!!) 💗

🪄Back In A Spell by Lana Harper (witches?? count me in!!) 😌

[mistwraiths]

3.5 stars

So, this was a very long albeit mostly enjoyable read. It had all the trappings I wanted in a fantasy. Nobles, thieves, magic, stories, the great journeying and adventures, and good worldbuilding and interesting characters. I really liked the inclusion of the tales themselves being in the story too.

However, there was just something so... average about this book? I think it was just the writing and I'm not trying to be mean, but most everything felt written on a more surface level. Nothing moved me, the writing wasn't super descriptive or good. It was just simple? I didn't fall in love with the characters. I like them but they didn't do anything for me.

This is not to say that this book isn't enjoyable! The jinn, the relics, the Sandsea, it's all very interesting. The secrets and betrayals were everywhere in this story. I think my favorite part was that these characters did stumble and fail, they didn't immediately get along, didn't immediately like each other, got hurt, etc.

The ending was definitely the best part in my opinion because it took about a good 120ish pages before it really began to start.

I liked Qadir and Loulie's adopted family relationship. And I really liked how Mazen is completely unskilled but a good person. And Alisha and her deal was very intriguing.

I'm interested to seeing what happens next.

[wakingupnexttoyou]

Also starting this one today. It's based on the stories from on thousand and one nights (where Aladdin and his tales come from). Also didn't realize this one was part of an unfinished trilogy until I opened the book lol. Apparently I need to check these things closer because I said I wasn't starting and series that weren't finished 😂 oh well! I'm pretty excited for this one!

[fantasybooktournament]

Book review: The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

Rating: 4/5

I read this earlier this year and loved it. The setting was great, I loved seeing the world and learning about it, the people in it, and the magic.

There are 3 point-of-view characters, Loulie, Mazen, and Aisha. I liked all of them, and seeing their different perspectives on the world and seeing how each of them and their motives clashed was interesting. Of the 3 I'd say Mazen was the one I disliked the most; his character felt kind of flat next to the other two for a good portion of the story.

I initially listened to this as an audiobook through my library (later I purchased a hard copy), which had 3 narrators, one for each POV. I was kind of thrown off a little at first by this, because each of the narrators had different interpretations for characters within the story. I adjusted though and actually I kind of liked that in the end. You get a different feel for the way the characters view themselves, each other, and others.

I do wish more time had been spent on showing the relationship between Loulie and her jinn friend Qadir. I also think some sequences went on a little too long, or just didn't quite achieve what the author was probably going for.

Thank you!!

[just-a-bookish-reader]

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was amazing. I read it while waiting for flights and on flights to Charleston for YAllFest last month and I finished it so suddenly that my dad and I were thankful our first flight was only an hour long and then we had a layover, so I could just listen to an audiobook and survive before I could get to the other books I had packed. And honestly, in someways I feel like this book has ruined me forever.

The storytelling aspect was so strong, the way the author set it up with it actually being a story being told and not just running dialogue between characters that felt info dumpy... I almost find the latter annoying now even though that's much more common than what this book did. Also some of the flashbacks the way they were written - for some reason were giving me Six of Crows flashback vibes?

Which is absolutely meant to be taken as a compliment because I think those have been the best sorts of flashbacks I've ever read. Everything felt so vivid and real when I was reading it, and I cannot wait for the second book, but hey at least we have a title and a cover for it! Overall, completely 5 stars, magnificent masterpiece of a novel, and I can't wait to see what Chelsea Abdullah does with the rest of the series! View all my reviews