Thieves’ Gambit (ARC Book Review)

I always feel extremely elite when I get the opportunity to read an ARC, and as a result I end up reading some that are a little bit beyond the normal bounds of my reading tastes. Every once in a while, though, I’ll find an ARC that is right up my alley. That was the case when I got Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis. It was the best-marketed ARC I’ve ever seen. I see ARCS all the time; Barnes and Noble gets them regularly, and as a bookseller I’m encouraged to take whichever ones strike my fancy in the hopes that I can handsell them upon their release, but they usually come the way a normal book would, in a regular box. Thieves’ Gambit, alongside two other upcoming teen books that will be published by Penguin, came in a fancy box with cardboard cutouts that invoked a sense of excitement and mystery. The three books were divvied up amongst myself and two other YA enthusiasts, and while those other books looked interesting, I’m very glad to have gotten the one I did. The box promised “A spot of The Inheritance Games, a taste of Six of Crows, an echo of Ocean’s Eleven.” I’m obsessed with Six of Crows; it’s probably my favorite book, so anything that purports to be like it in any small way is going to pique my interest. As for the other two comps: I like the Ocean’s movies—a well-written heist is always fun—and while I was ultimately disappointed in The Inheritance Games because of its overemphasis on romance and overall execution, I liked the concept enough that as a comp it isn’t a dealbreaker. I went in excited, expecting heists, chaos, and a team worth rooting for. I got it.

Thieves’ Gambit is on the left; I’m not sure what the other two books were.

When will it be released?

Thieves’ Gambit is scheduled for publication September 26, 2023.

What’s it about?

Ross Quest’s family is famous amongst thieves, and at seventeen she’s already the best of the best at making tight escapes. Despite this, she wants out—at least temporarily—so she can have something of a normal life. She has everything planned, but then something goes horribly wrong: her escape plan unintentionally gets her mother kidnapped. With a demanded ransom of a billion dollars due in an impossibly short amount of time, Ross has no choice but to join the Thieves’ Gambit, a dangerously high-stakes thieving competition with an open-ended wish granted to a sole winner. Ross has the skills and the motivation to win, but her competitors are more to reckon with than she planned, including as they do a childhood-friend-turned-archnemesis and a suave gentlemanly guy who has made it his mission to charm her.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

As I said above, heists are fun; Thieves’ Gambit fulfills its promise of crime and capers. It was a little difficult to keep track of some of the twists and turns, but that didn’t do much to detract from the the experience. At times, Lewis chooses to keep some of Ross’ machinations secret from the reader for the sake of twists; this isn’t necessarily a bad writing choice, but the problem is that we are in Ross’ POV the whole time and it’s only rarely that she makes moves that the reader doesn’t see. This left me floundering at least twice (I’m still not sure when she and Mylo made that plan-within-a-plan). Still, despite these minor hiccups, the action keeps ticking along at an exciting pace and my confusion never threatened to overwhelm my enthusiasm. Once Ross gets to the Gambit, it’s hard to put the book down; there are enough challenges and with enough unexpected curveballs that you never quite know what’s coming. There are a variety of tasks to complete, and Lewis does an excellent job of convincing us of Ross’ skills without ever letting us quite grow comfortable with her odds.

Little Monsters (Book Review)

I was not excited when I found out that I’d have to read Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur for book club. I didn’t have anything against Brodeur—I’d never read or even heard of her before—and the book itself didn’t particularly strike me one way or the other. There was one very damning piece of evidence that I’d hate the book, though: Miranda Cowley Heller endorsed it. 

If I’ve ever hated a novel more than I hated The Paper Palace, which I also read for book club, then I can’t recall it. It made me feel physically ill, and caused me significant mental distress. I was afraid that Little Monsters would similarly disturb me. There are ways to write about abuse that are effective and harrowing without being disgusting and unreadable. Cowley Heller, who inflicted multiple highly descriptive scenes of child sexual assault on me, has not demonstrated an ability to do that. Thankfully, Brodeur is capable of it.

Little Monsters is about family dysfunction and, yes, abuse… but the way it is addressed is far, far better. We see the abuse in the aftermath, in the ways that it has shaped the people affected. We get enough information that we can intuit the general shape of what happened, but there is no voyeurism involved. Even as the novel builds to the revelations, the focus is kept fiercely on the aftermath and the recovery: Ken’s therapy, Abby’s artwork. The reader doesn’t get the details because the reader doesn’t need them… and the characters themselves don’t know all of them. 

What’s it about?

Renowned oceanographer Adam Gardner is about to turn seventy, and plans to have a large party populated by family, friends, and old colleagues alike where he can unveil his most recent—and possibly last—great discovery. His two adult children, whom Adam raised alone after the death of his beloved first wife, are each planning an elaborate gift for him. The two siblings—not to mention their gifts— could not be more different. Ken is a wealthy and successful businessman with a perfect family, and Abby is a bohemian artist living off a meager teaching salary and her brother’s goodwill. As Adam’s party approaches, old family secrets make themselves known as Adam, Ken, Abby, and a stranger called Steph move into place for a birthday bash none of them will ever forget.

What trigger warnings should readers be aware of?

This is a difficult question to answer as, technically, the answer is a spoiler. I will say that the material is treated sensitively. It is hinted at throughout the book and confirmed towards the end very clearly, but there are no long descriptions and the focus is put entirely where it belongs: in the ways the participants were affected after the fact.

Nimona (Book Review)

I’m a bandwagon fan. When I see that a book suddenly spikes in popularity, I pay attention. Nimona by ND Stevenson started popping up everywhere post-Netflix adaptation and that, combined with a recommendation from a coworker, encouraged me to follow suit. I requested it from the library and, a surprisingly short period of time later and with very little idea of what exactly I was getting myself into, I settled down to read.

What’s it about?

When an overenthusiastic and exuberantly violent shapeshifter turns up at his door determined to be his sidekick, noted villain Ballister Blackheart doesn’t quite know what to make of her. Still, Ballister quickly becomes fond of Nimona and agrees to let her help him with his scientific-but-not-actually-all-that-evil plan: expose the shady behavior of the lauded and powerful Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics. But between Nimona’s antics and the efforts of the Institution’s golden boy Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, Blackheart’s plans lead to unforeseen turmoil.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Between the animated adaptation, the cheerful artwork, and the YA designation, I wasn’t expecting Nimona to be so intense. I said I didn’t know what I was getting into, but that’s not entirely true. I’d seen the bit of the movie trailer where Nimona says, “I’m not a girl, I’m a shark. Chomp chomp.” Based on that and that alone I assumed that this was going to be a silly, comedic venture with a sort of straight man + cloud cuckoo lander energy. It’s not not that, but that’s not really the standout impression I have after finishing.

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Despite the somewhat simplistic artwork, Nimona is a complex story about corrupt power structures, hatred and discrimination, and the way that assumptions can be self-fulfilling prophecies in the worst possible way. Because Nimona is set in a world of glittering knights and dastardly supervillains, it’s easy to expect a relatively hard line between good and evil, even if—being introduced sympathetically to the supposed ‘villains’—we are predisposed to reverse the obvious associations. The truth is that our three primary characters are too messy to be called totally good or totally bad. Nimona is feisty and fun, and she bonds with Blackheart quickly and loyally… but she also thinks nothing of killing people, and in fact actively enjoys reigning violence on others. Sir Goldenloin is loyal to his cause and dedicated to doing what he believes is right… but he has a jealous streak and a profound ability to retroactively justify even his worst actions. Blackheart is possibly the closest thing we have to a moral center in this story in that his primary motivation is to expose the truth, but even he has underhanded methods, holds long grudges, and can be swayed to betray friends. Their complexity makes them far more interesting, but it also gives Nimona a melancholy that I hadn’t expected. It’s about people who have been hurt hurting themselves and each other, and even if the story ends on a hopeful note, it’s not a happy one.

August 2023 Wrap-Up

The end of summer is always sad. My sister has gone back to college, and I don’t understand why the weather hasn’t cooled down. It seems only fair that if all the fun parts of summer are ending, the insufferable heat should also end. Ugh, climate change. I didn’t read as much this month, but I got back into the habit of writing regularly. Hopefully I’ll have a complete draft sometime in the next year, but I’d forgotten just how long the process takes.

Here’s what I read…

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

I know that romance isn’t my taste, and knowing that I should probably stop reading them and trying to force myself to enjoy something that, at the end of the day, just isn’t for me. They’re just so popular, though, and I love jumping on a bandwagon. I enjoyed Delilah Green Doesn’t Care as much as it’s possible for me to enjoy a novel of this kind. It is a quick read with some interesting character dynamics that are unfortunately buried under a somewhat lackluster, physical-attraction-based romance. For my tastes, I would have loved the book to be restructured as a family drama starring the two stepsisters, with the less-appealing secondary lead being demoted to love interest, but I am self-aware enough to realize that Ashley Herring Blake absolutely did not write Delilah Green Doesn’t Care for a person with my tastes. It does exactly what it needs to do for the crowd it is actually trying to reach: it’s a sweet, lightly spicy wlw romance about love, art, and celebrating women. It may not be for me, but that’s not to say that it isn’t very good.

Full review here

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Nimona by N.D. Stevenson

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Despite the unexpected melancholy, I highly enjoyed Nimona. What looks from the outside to be a simple fantasy romp actually develops slowly but surely into an insightful look at the ills of an exclusionary and assumptive society. Equally full of silliness and tragedy, Nimona is as heartfelt as it is thoughtful. The queer metaphors aren’t as obvious as I expected them to be—they’re there if you look, but there’s very little in terms of confirmed maintext LGBTQ+ content—but I was pleasantly surprised by the dive into corrupt police states and societal discrimination-turned-hate-and-fear. I thought I was settling down to an uncomplicated fun time, but I’m not at all disappointed to get something different. The movie is great, too; it’s a massively different experience as almost everything is remixed into something that is ultimately a lot more straightforward and hopeful, but I still highly enjoyed it.

Full review here

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Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas