Review of THE THIEF by Megan Whalen Turner
Market Age Recommendation: 13-18
Content Age Recommendation: 13-older
Overall Rating: 17/20
This book, the start of the fascinating and complicated Queen’s Thief series, is interesting and enjoyable—and clean!
Summary
Gen, an excellent street thief in the Greek-reminiscent country of Sounis, has unfortunately been caught. He’s in prison plotting his escape when the king’s advisor, or magus, notices him and tells the guards to release him. The magus needs Gen’s skills to help him find and steal an ancient, possibly mythical treasure, and, not given much of a choice, Gen agrees. Thus begins a difficult journey, in which Gen must decide what he really wants and what he will do to get it…
Book Elements Rating
Overall: 9/10
Characters: 2/2. I loved Gen; he’s one of my favorite YA protagonists. His motivations are complex and fascinating, like a real person, and his personality is just…fun to read. I didn’t particularly love the other characters, but they were well-defined, complicated, realistic, and interesting.
Setting/Worldbuilding: 2/2. I loved the setting too! Based on ancient Greece, it was detailed and realistic and fascinating.
Narration: 1/2. I enjoyed Gen’s first-person, past-tense narration most of the time, but it occasionally felt a little bit…boring? Sorry, but I enjoyed his dialogue more than his narration. There were a lot of descriptions, and they were very interesting and realistic, but they occasionally felt unnecessarily long.
Plot: 2/2. The plot did feel a bit slow at first, but the pacing allowed the readers to get to know the characters pretty well. I won’t spoil anything, but the ending was amazing!
Interest/clarity: 2/2.
Morality/Content Rating
Overall: 8/10
Good and evil: 1/2. This story isn’t a conflict between good and evil, and…actually, good and evil aren’t discussed much in the story. There are some good themes, like friendship and humility. Additionally…I’m not sure which rating section I should mention this in, but this world has a mythology system. Although Gen doubts the gods’ existence at first, he learns to believe in them and obey them. It’s not entirely clear if the gods are good in this story, but I appreciate the author’s acknowledgement of divinity.
Character choices: 1.5/2. Gen…kind of wants to do the right thing. He’s a complicated character; he seems to want to help only himself, and he does a few selfish things—aah, I won’t spoil it. His true motives are revealed by the end.
Content: 5.5/6. It was very clean! There was a little bit of language, and a bit of non-descriptive violence, but those were the only content problems I noticed.
Overall, this book was enjoyable, fascinatingly detailed, and clean. It’s also the beginning of one of my favorite YA/adult series, The Queen’s Thief. Although the later books become more complicated, this first book is clear and interesting, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, historical-feeling fantasy, mythology, complicated characters, journeys, stories, and…pretty much everyone, actually.