Friday, October 16, 2020

Book 70: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

This is the sort of book that I initially started this blog four and a half years ago for - I have owned The Thief for so long that I can't even remember where I got it. I'm 90% sure that it was a Christmas present, but when and from whom is truly lost to time. But I always wanted to read it, I just...never got around to it. Well, I finally did, and just in time for the sixth and final book in the series to have been published!

So there's this thief, you see, and he's imprisoned in a king's prison, and then released under the conditions that he has to go help someone steal something that's impossible to steal: a mythical artifact. It becomes clear fairly early on that the narrator is extremely unreliable, both in terms of what the narrative omits and also how information is presented, and the reveals are extremely well done and satisfying. I think this is a book that will reward a reread a lot. The setting is very much a pseudo-Ancient Greece, with a mythology that is clearly inspired by the same region, and overall there's a vague Guy Gavriel Kay approach to history here, which to the probable surprise of no one works very well for me. It is also a wonderful first book to a series because while I was very enthusiastic about starting the next one in the series, it also stands alone extremely well, and I really enjoyed having it exist on its own. If you are also like me and have only been hearing abut this series referred to as The Queen's Thief but haven't read it yet, I really recommend it! 

Grade: A

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