Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Little Thieves

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Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

34 reviews

oddduck's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I like stories that are assembled with the precision of a watchmaker. Every detail matters. Each tiny piece works together to move forward. If one thing is even slightly off, the story doesn’t work the way it should.

This is one of those stories.

500 pages is getting to be on the long side for me, so I was expecting a little bit of drag. There was none. Every single scene in this book is there for a reason and 500 pages practically flies by. Yet it also didn’t feel like we were moving too fast at any point.

The plot came at just the right pace and with just the right amount of detail that it all came together perfectly in my head, without me figuring out the end too soon/easily and without me feeling frustrated because I didn’t have enough information until the very last second. I figured out part of Adalbrecht’s plan shortly before Vanja and Emeric did, which was ideal timing for me. And everything I hadn’t figured out fell into place as it was spelled out. This plot was like a carefully conducted symphony and it went off without a hitch.

I also loved all the characters, even when some of them weren’t particularly likeable. There’s such a clear motive for their actions that though I may not agree with them, I understand and feel sympathetic for them (except Adalbrecht and Irmgard, they’re both just terrible – that’s a compliment though). They were all so beautifully written, but Vanja and Emeric were the standouts for me.

Vanja’s character arc was incredible. I, admittedly, have a soft spot for characters who have been so hurt they think the only way to protect themselves is to close themselves off and harden their heart, and Vanja is no exception. I love this type of character because it’s moving to see them learn to love and be loved again (even if they’re dragged into it kicking and screaming, like Vanja). The way she grows over the course of the story - going from hating/resenting Emeric, Ragne, and Gisele to calling them her friends and making peace with her past and wanting Emeric to catch her - is brilliantly done. It feels natural and inevitable.

I fell for Emeric in exactly the way Vanja did (er, that is his façade, not the kissing part). It was absolutely delightful to find out how wrong my impression of him was. Like, I actually laughed out loud at the reveal and I’m gleeful just thinking about it. I liked the façade, but the real Emeric was even better. He’s smart and flawed and eager to prove himself and he cares so deeply. He’s just such a great character and Vanja’s many descriptions of him are both correct and hilarious.

There’s also the obligatory shout out for the art, which was done by Margaret Owen as well. She’s talked about a lot of the symbolism and composition of each piece on her twitter, and it’s definitely worth a read through. The art on its own is beautiful, but her explanations of it make it even better.

There is so much else to talk about in the book - the structure, the fairy tale, the casual queer rep, the demi rep (!), the magic system, the rest of the world building, the creatures (Poldi!) - and it’s all so, so good. Honestly, I loved every single thing about this book and I could talk about it for hours. The highest praise I can give it is this: I want to take this book apart like it’s a clock to see how it works. What an absolutely phenomenal book.

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faerietalebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I absolutely love Margaret Owen’s writing of grey and flawed characters. She does an amazing job of fleshing out all of the characters and making them distinctive from each other. They are all so fascinating to read and see how their desires clash and build upon each other. What I love most about this Goose Girl retelling is the incorporation of German mythical creatures into the world building.

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tieflingreads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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marleyshaddox's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a fun little YA fantasy romp. The interesting concept drew me in and the lovable cast of characters made me stay, even through the body horror aspects. I would read a sequel!

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campisforever's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book should also be classified as LGBTQIA+ because there are queer characters, mentions of trans characters, and the leads are on the Ace spectrum.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book. I have no words. Please read it.

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kristae1's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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sambutwithbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was super fun- I loved the demi rep and the story never really ever lost steam. I do wish the ending had been more but that felt like the only weak part of the book.

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hanarama's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Book at a glance:
• Fairytale retold
• Enemies to lovers, cat and mouse
• Medieval Germany-inspired setting
• Lgbt secondary and tertiary characters
• Gods and spirits

Vanja is the adopted daughter of Fortune and Death. But she must live in the mortal realm away from her mothers. Serving from childhood as a princess' maid, she decides to change her fortune. First she trades the princess' identity and life for her own.

With the princess' identity as a shield, Vanja goes on a crime spree. She targets the nobility, robbing them blind when they least expect it. But now a young inspector is hot on her trail, a God has cursed her for her greed, and her wedding to the princess' betrothed looms before her. Vanja has just two weeks to solve all of these problems. Does she have what it takes to save herself, or will she need to put her trust in others?

What I liked:
The worldbuilding is pretty solid. The Germanic inspiration is evident in the folklore, foods, and landscape. However, Owen makes it her own. The hierarchy of the nobility is unique and interesting, as are the gods of this setting. I would love to read more about them.

The characters are diverse and the world is accepting. In spite of the evil nobility, this setting seems like a nice place to live. Owen offers casual representation with LGBT+ and POC characters in the main cast and background.

The characters, though trope-y are generally likeable. The main cast feels friendly and are fun to read about. Gisele and Vanja were the most enjoyable.

Also, the interspersed "fairytale" chapters are really great. Accompanied by beautiful illustration, they capture the fairytale feel and flesh out Vanja's backstory.

What I disliked:
This book is distinctly ya. If you like ya tropes and conventions, you won't mind this, but for me it made the story feel overly quaint at times. It's very tropey and predictable in its plot. Characters' actions are very telegraphed and so it at points it feels absurd that the heroes take so long to uncover the villains true plot.

There were frequent miscommunications between characters to the point of frustration. At times I felt as though the plot would have been resolved faster if the characters just let one another speak before accusing them of some wrong doing. Certainly, I think some of these moments could have been cut, which likely would have quickened the pacing a bit.

At times I felt like the character Ragne was naive and annoying. Her speaking pattern felt artificial and came across as irritating rather than endearing.

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sarah_the_reviewroom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I really thought I'd love Little Thieves, the synopsis and all the 5 star reviews just really sounded like something I'd enjoy. Unfortunately, I didn't!

I found the pace very slow, the back and forth storytelling didn't help because things would just start picking up and then the section would end and it'd start with another "Once upon a time" section.
There seemed to be a lot of things going on but it was so all over the place that it was just confusing!

There's also no explanation for the magic system so everything felt very convenient - particularly the ending. As events happen, more and more crazy things go on and I was just left with a sense of "oh well, literally anything can happen so there's no risk".

And the thing was, even if the characters looked to be in danger, I didn't really care! I found it very hard to connect to them, there are a lot of characters and none of them is particularly likeable.
There's a whole romantic plotline added in late in the book which didn't have any build up so it was an odd mix of enemies to lovers and insta-love.

The world-building was nice, I liked the descriptions of people and places - I could easily picture Death and Fortune for example. But there's a really odd mix of German words just added in, and again it just made things more confusing because several German words were used for the same English word.

I started this book on the 16th December 2021 and finished it on 2nd January 2022 - which is just way too long for me. I almost DNFd twice but I'd come too far to give up and not have it count towards my reading!

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This seems like a fairly straightforward plot, right? A thief steals the wrong thing, gets cursed, and has to return everything she’s stolen to get un-cursed. It sounds straightforward and doable, if personally difficult for our protagonist.

Except that there are so many complicating factors that this simple-sounding plot becomes a 14-hour audiobook of surprises, magic, unexpected friendships, and one of the most thoroughly evil antagonists I’ve encountered in a long time. The true purposes behind Vanja’s curse aren’t even revealed until the climax. The back cover leaves out the villain entirely, along with two of the three major characters helping Vanja.

There is a lot of plot in this story, but there are also very strong character arcs. Giselle got an obvious one of learning how the other 99% lives and how to not be a spoiled rich girl, and I wasn’t sure if I would like her but she turned out pretty decent in the end. Ragne, the half-human shapeshifter daughter of the goddess who cursed Vanja who is attempting to help Vanja undo her curse, learns how to act like a human and how to fall in love. Emeric, the investigator trying to find the culprit behind Vanja’s jewel thefts, learns to deal with loss and discovers some things about his sexuality.

I saved Vanja for last because, as the main protagonist, she has the most going on character-wise. She has a metric ton of trauma, and her character is one of the best-written descriptions of trauma I’ve ever seen. There’s no “saved by the power of love” or torture porn or anything, she just feels and reacts in a way that had me thinking, “Yeah, that’s just How Trauma Is.” Her path has some steps forward and some steps back (like dealing with trauma in real life), and she gets some stunning character growth as she learns to start trusting people again.

I love that everybody in this book is just allowed to feel things. These characters have suffered a lot of pain, Vanja especially, and there aren’t any easy answers but the story doesn’t try to give them any. There are a lot of big emotions but the book makes space for those and they’re handled with respect and care.

Since so much of the story is not mentioned in the back cover, I’m going to limit my discussion of it. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy it. It’s absolutely full of shenanigans, from delightful jewel heists to playacting as a ditzy princess to get out of trouble to the natural hilariousness that comes from pretending to be both the princess and her maid at the same time. This book doesn’t explore the world much, and in many ways it relies on “generic vaguely-18th-century-Europe fantasy” tropes, but it has a distinct German flavor and an interesting pantheon and religious system that elevated the setting far above pure trope for me.

I’m also going to mention the antagonist, who doesn’t even show up until a quarter of the way through the book but whose threat level rapidly increases as the story goes on. He is the worst, most hateable kind of enemy, the nobleman who sees everyone else as beneath him and those beneath him as less than human, and who thinks his feeling entitled to rule everything is exactly the same as Vanja feeling like she deserves to be treated like a human. He’s an abuser and a sexual predator and so very powerful and I can’t express how much I hate him but from a story perspective he did make a good antagonist.

I’m leaving a ton out of this review just for space considerations, but I could talk about this book for a long time. There’s so much in this book. Not only was it a stellar story, reading it was incredibly cathartic. I got to see some fantastic hijinks, solve a couple magical mysteries, encounter several gods, tell off some self-centered nobles, enjoy some hilarious one-liners, and fight a seemingly-unstoppable antagonist armed with little more than quick thinking and thievery skills, and I also got to wrestle with some complicated feelings about mothers, face lingering trauma, stand up to past abusers, seize control over my own destiny, and start learning to be happy.

If you want a fantasy adventure mystery that will make you laugh, this is your book; if you want a cathartic emotional read that might make you cry, this is also your book. Basically, just read this book.

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