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al_dahart's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Violence, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, War, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
enchantedobjects's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
It is 700 pages of brotherhood, conning the rich, expanisve lore of one venice-adjacent city, and getting up after you've been throughly drowned in piss.
It has my favourite underground crime syndicate system. Its 13 priesthood is lovingly detailed. These lads are not mary-sues in any definition. The interludes are a welcome break and also incredibly important for the main narrative.
Also, gladiatorial shark fighting.
This book, while being a trilogy, can be treated as a stand-alone. I will likely read the sequels just because these con-lads mischief is worth reading more of.
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Cursing
emeraldrina's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
I’ll start with the good - the world building is incredible. It’s intricate, original, and holds so many mysteries yet to be answered. The descriptions are beautiful and detailed, making it easy to picture this strange world.
But therein also lies one of the major downfalls of the book - there’s far too much world building detail and description throughout the book. Between every chapter there’s an “interlude” - initially these are all flashbacks to the characters’ past to give insight into how or why they’re doing certain things now. But about halfway through the book the interludes just turn into unnecessary world building info dumps that jar the reader out of the story. Many of these are superfluous - the information was already conveyed in a more interesting manner via the main story, as it should be. The rest are just pointless to the main story, and feel more like the author is insisting on showing off exactly how much work he put into his world building.
Likewise with the descriptions - they’re written not as part of the story, but in the author’s voice, butting in between the action to tell us as much detail as he can because he wrote it all and doesn’t want it to go to waste. They’re beautifully written, but they’re not in the POV character’s voice, so they don’t feel like part of the story. They feel like unnecessary interruptions.
As for the characters, they mostly have clear voices and personalities and flaws. However, the main character is utterly lacking in internal conflict. Up until the villain shows up (which is waaaay too late in the book), Locke had no real goal or motivation in life. He has a major flaw, but no related overarching misbelief about the world or fear that’s driving him to act in ways counter to his goal. He’s just … a thief stealing money for the sake of it. He never learns anything, never transforms, never really changes at all. And this is why the first couple hundred pages of the book are such a drag - we don’t care about Locke because he has no internal conflict. We start caring a bit when the inciting attack fiiiinally happens near the halfway point, but this is still just external conflict. So even after that initial attack, there weren’t really any different stakes for Locke than for anyone else in that situation. So we still didn’t care all that much.
The final problem is the schemes. They’re supposed to be genius level clever… but they’re not. They’re quite frankly idiotic. They seem to have been purposely designed to fail easily - which of course they have. But only the author should know that, not the readers! The gaping holes in the schemes in turn make the plot transparently predictable. Which is even less fun than usual in a heist story.
I really didn’t hate the book as much as this makes it sound. The dialogue was amusing, the world was fascinating, and the prose was lovely. It just fell a lot flatter than I was expecting after reading so many great reviews.
Moderate: Slavery, Child death, Gore, Violence, Trafficking, Vomit, and Cursing
dragonaion's review against another edition
- 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
"Liar... Liar... Liar... Bastard!"
Edit: I've found another book that is a sibling-story to this. If you enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora, you will absolutely feel right at home with Nevernight by Jay Kristoff.
Graphic: Animal death and Blood
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Torture, Violence, Sexual content, and Gore
Minor: Gore, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Bullying, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Medical content, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Alcohol, and Medical trauma
This is intended for adult readers, starting at the end of an epidemic sparing only children, contains sexual content, violence, gore, animal cruelty, graphic animal death (only at one point), and mentions slavery all in a realistic lense.slightlylostwriter's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Violence, Cursing, Blood, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Physical abuse, Murder, Grief, Gore, and Death
cara_vd's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Cursing and Violence
mgraceoliver's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Minor: Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Animal death, Gore, Murder, Abandonment, Blood, Classism, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Violence
madamenovelist's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Violence, Xenophobia, Torture, Misogyny, Cursing, Medical trauma, Fatphobia, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Ableism, Abandonment, Blood, Sexism, Slavery, Death of parent, Confinement, Classism, Child death, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Sexual content, Police brutality, Gore, Grief, Excrement, Death, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
daisythebrownie's review against another edition
Graphic: Cursing, Child abuse, and Violence
apotheosis's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Torture, Classism, Murder, Violence, and Cursing
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Blood, Vomit, Animal death, and Death
Minor: Slavery, Genocide, Trafficking, Rape, and Ableism
There is a lot of swearing in this book and is one of the more prominent complaints about it (I enjoy it but your mileage may vary).