Reviews

Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault

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glitter_reversi's review

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

4.75

Such a fantastic and engaging adventure! Loved all the representation, especially as an aroallo myself I loved how relatable Claire experience is!

sarahsnacks's review

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hopeful lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

ordwayhomebody's review

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adventurous mysterious slow-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

3.0

I absolutely loved a lot of this book, the author describes characters and the world so wonderfully with this tinge of warmth; the action scenes are also very gripping. I do wish that the cast of characters was tightened up more since the a mount of small character roles felt overwhelming at times. Overall though this was a great and really warm feeling book.

cqqq17's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative mysterious reflective 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

4.25

marioncromb's review

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adventurous dark emotional 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? No

3.25

Not a style of prose I am personally a big fan of, kinda a bit too YA & tell not show (common with these sort of alphabet soup and very deliberate 'for the representation' books), but an enjoyable read.

I liked the French(-Canadian?) aspect to the worldbuilding

I really liked some of the side characters, like Mx Kouna and Emmanuelle.

The fat rep was nice. The genderfluid rep i think was shown very well, the benefits of the book format is that it is easy to just take it as written (Claire, and also Claude, different but the same) and conceptualise gender in a purer way without any visual distraction. In a world with magic though i always feel like real world signifiers of gnc like binders or etc wouldn't really be necessary, because magic could do better??

Nice to have aro & ace rep but as an aro it got too sappy for me

A diverse cast of characters but there was a lil bit of 'white as default', while the characters with black or brown skin was often deliberately made clear, no one was explicitly described as white (and only one or two side characters occasionally described as pale) when i think they were supposed to have been assumed to be (?)

The witches in the tanks and left in the bridge seemed kind of forgotten about?? I also wanted to know what happened with the exocores

10000bees's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

Superheroes, bakers, and a magical mystery combine in Baker Thief, which is about a baker who is also a thief. It was a little hard to get into because of a slow start, but I think once I got used to the writing style it helped speed things along. I really liked all the queer rep (of which there is so much!) and the world was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it felt like there was a pretty huge disconnect between the tone of the writing and the actual truth behind the mystery. Without spoiling, the heaviness of the truth doesn't feel impactful when there's so much lighthearted banter sometimes on the same page. Idk, it really diminished some of the impacts and tension. Still a cute read and a great choice if you're looking for books that feature aromantic characters and relationships!