Review: "The Thief" by Megan Whalen Turner

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, Book 1 in series "The Queen's Thief"

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Literature, Mythology

Blurb: "Unforgettable characters, plot twists that will make your head spin, a world rendered in elegant detail - you will fall in love with every page of these stories." - Leigh Bardugo

Read Time: 3 days

Rating: 3 stars

Review

The story starts with Gen - presumably the titular thief - languishing in prison. I found this an intriguing hook, and was even more interested when Gen was pulled out of prison by the magus, a character who is never named. I started getting confused when the king of Sounis was introduced. Mainly, it seemed as if the name of the country and the name of the king were interchangeable. We also never see the king again, at least not in this book, so his introduction didn't add much to the story for me.

As Gen and the party (consisting of the magus, a soldier named Pol, the magus's apprentice Ambiades, and the son of a duke Sophos) began their journey, I realized that I didn't like very many of the characters. The magus was arrogant, Gen was whiny and unnecessarily annoying, and Ambiades was arrogant and clearly the character that would turn on the party. Only Pol and Sophos were relatively likeable, Sophos more so than Pol (I'm sure there's a reason for that, likely to set up for the next books). I also thought that despite how needlessly bitchy Gen was being, there was no need for the magus (and occasionally Pol) to humiliate him so often.

The writing also bothered me a little. It often felt quite young, which I could normally live with, but there were other things that pushed the immaturity of the writing over the top for me. For example, there was a tendency to use "olive trees" and "olives" interchangeably when referring to olive trees. There were also some occasional tense changes (from past to present to past again) and occasion POV changes (from Gen to other characters to Gen again) that were jarring and pulled me from the story. I'm not sure whether those tense or POV changes were deliberate, but I did not find them well executed.

I enjoyed the mythology of the world. However, I wish Gen and the magus had both presented their versions. We were told that they disagreed on the myths, but we were only presented one version as 'truth'.

I found the ending fairly predictable, and I suspect I would have even if I had not known the name of the series. It was clear to me early on that Ambiades would sell out his party to the Attolians, and I knew as soon as the magus 'lost' the Gift that Gen had stolen it back. I was also not surprised when Gen revealed himself as Eugenides, the Queen's Thief of Eddis. I was, however, somewhat surprised by Pol's death and Sophos's admission that he was Sounis's heir.

Overall, while I had some issues with the characters and the writing, the story was enjoyable. I'm not super motivated to go read the sequel, but I'll pick it up if I come across it.