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quel_g's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Minor: Infidelity and Abandonment
maggies's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Minor: Infidelity and Abandonment
space12133's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia, Ableism, and Abandonment
Moderate: Emotional abuse
anna_wa's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Violence, Stalking, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, and Cursing
Minor: Vomit
oddduck's review
4.5
While I did end up adoring this book, I do have some thoughts on it. But first, let's look at what I loved.
I'm a big character person, and I loved these characters. The Shannon family is such a mess, but they still care about each other. Jack's friends strike a nice balance between "Are we sure this is a good idea?" and ride-or-die. And they're all so distinct from each other! It was a delight to meet them all and watch Jack bond with all of them. I especially love Lucky, but I've got a major soft spot for small, cute characters who will not hesitate to rip a grown man to shreds (literally or metaphorically). Beth and Kerry were also super interesting to me. Seeing how their personalities struggled to mesh for so long felt very realistic, as did Jack's realizations about why Beth and Kerry are who they are. When he finally got there and was willing to make an effort with them was a great moment.
The villain was pretty solid. I won't say that he's interesting, because I don't think he is, but I do think he's realistic, and in this book I'd actually say that's more important. He's very wealth and power driven, which makes sense for his goal, and is one of the things that make the twist at the end work. Not really much else to say about him, other than it was satisfying when he lost.
Speaking of the twist, I liked that quite a bit. I was expecting a different twist from very early on, but once the clues for the actual twist started to add up, I figured them out pretty quick. I think it worked well and definitely made sense with Carlevaro's motives, though I am still a bit disappointed that what I thought was coming did not end up being the plot (but more on that shortly).
Now obviously we've got to talk ace rep. As an ace starved for some good fictional representation, I'll freely admit that this was 50% of the sell for me (the other 50% was, naturally, the heist aspect). I was promised not just a main character who's ace, but a whole team of ace characters, and boy howdy did this book deliver. And it was good!! They weren't all the same and they interacted with their ace identity differently! We got conversations on what having a romantic relationship can mean/look like as an ace person. We got "hey they're cute - wait what?". We got "Hard pass, get that away from me please and thank you". We got "I'm out and proud" and "I don't really feel the need/want to tell people that I'm ace" and had those coexist without pressure or judgement! And!!! Jack describes learning about asexuality as feeling like a missing piece has clicked into place. Yes!!! That was the feeling!!! It was the "Oh, that's a thing?" moment! I nearly cried when I read that. Absolutely incredible.
Related, there's another scene that I really liked that centers on asexuality that I want to discuss. Summary behind the spoiler bar.
The heist aspect was fun, but, as is usually the case for non-Leverage media, not particularly elaborate. I liked the way blackjack was a recurring topic, especially for a character named Jack, and
Now let's talk about the two things I wish would have been done just a little differently.
First, while I liked that Kerry is hard of hearing, I wish we would have known this sooner. I love that Kerry's not The Deaf Character, but the way we find out that she uses a hearing aid makes it feel like this was a decision that was made late in the game, and thus only for the specific reason of making people view Kerry differently/seriously underestimate her. Even just mentioning it when we first meet her - maybe she needs to replace her hearing aid soon and is wondering how she's going to pay for it or is just generally worried about access to healthcare, alongside her college tuition - would have eliminated this. I love how casual it is, and I do like the idea that Kerry knows people underestimate her capabilities because she's disabled and uses that to her advantage, I just don't like how it feels like this was solely done to make the Plan work. Like, it's already established that Carlevaro is sexist. The Plan totally could have hinged on that and it still would have worked with Kerry.
Second, while I did end up liking the twist, it was not what I thought was coming. On the one hand, this is good. It's a subversion of expectations, which are usually interesting. On the other hand, I feel a little dissatisfied. My prediction, from very early on, was that Carlevaro was not going to be the one who sent Jack's mom to prison. There was going to be someone else pulling the strings, and perhaps even controlling Carlevaro, or maybe they were working together. Either way, oftentimes, when a character becomes so hyper-focused on an idea, they fall into a pit of confirmation bias, and then are totally blindsided when their idea is wrong. Looking back at the clues though, we see how they were actually building to something else. I love this structure, so seeing Jack immediately pick out Carlevaro as the culprit made me think that this was the road we were heading down. And again, I'm not disappointed with the real twist. I just did not have my expectations met on this specific thing and I'm still trying to adjust from that. This might be rectified with a reread, but for now, I'm just a little dissatisfied, which is mostly on me.
Overall, I loved this book. I was eagerly anticipating its release, and was so utterly thrilled to find it while browsing the "new" shelf at my local library. And I really wasn't disappointed. This was such a fun read and a fantastic way to start off the year.
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia
Moderate: Abandonment and Sexism
Minor: Blood, Ableism, and Alcohol
lizgriffinwords's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Protagonist Jack is a bit of an aspiring Kaz Brekker, though in personality he’s a bit more like Wylan. There is more of a “heist vibe” than a specific heist, and the vibrant setting provides all the highlights of Vegas without ever having to go to Vegas. Win-win.
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Emotional abuse
chris_reads'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
3.75
Moderate: Abandonment and Stalking
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
neglectlooseleafellie's review
This book was pitched as “modern asexual Kaz Brekker runs a Las Vegas heist,” and that’s a tough comp to live up to. It’s arguable whether the book actually contains a heist, but there was some fun espionage and gambling shenanigans. It annoyed me that much of the plot was made possible by one character being almost magically good at hacking, but that didn’t ruin the story for me.
Aces Wild has a focus on family and friendship, which was lovely to see! Jack and his friends disagree and make mistakes, but care deeply for each other. Jack also gains a newfound love for his complicated family. And there’s a cute subplot of Jack having a crush on his friend Remy, and having to navigate what that means as an asexual person.
I think it does Jack a disservice to describe him as Kaz Brekker — he has a very different past to Kaz, and more of a moral compass and empathy. I liked his arc, though. If you want to see an analytical, introverted kid struggling with his emotions realistically, this book is great! If you want a ruthless criminal who cares only about profit and one (1) stabby Wraith, that’s not what you’ll get here.
If a YA Ocean’s Eleven with an all-asexual heist crew sounds cool to you, you might want to check out Aces Wild!
In closing, a quote I loved: “Sexuality can be fluid, or at the very least a journey, not to mention personal. If someone said they were ace or gay or whatever, you believed them. Assuming that you were straight until you ‘know for sure’ only implied that it was better to be straight until you had no other choice.”
Thanks to Peachtree Teen for the e-ARC!
CWs: Abandonment, blood, acephobia mention.
Moderate: Blood and Abandonment
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
melaniereadsbooks's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
When Jack's mom gets arrested for shady dealings in Las Vegas, he invites his online (and also Aspec) friends to come help him take down the man that he swears got his mother sent to jail.
This book was unfortunately a disappointment. I know a lot of people read and reviewed before me and I was so scared because the concept of this is brilliant and the idea of 5 aspec MCs is a dream. I thought the plot was missing some things and the writing style didn't really grab me the way I wanted it to.
Now, there were some issues in the originally release netgalley arc that I heard have been changed and updated. I thought that the version I downloaded came after these changes and was supposed to be more up to date, but I didn't notice? There were still some problems with it. The whole hearing aid part is uncomfortable and least and ableist at best. There were a few discussions about being asexual which I think was one of the complaints I read about? They weren't super in-depth, which I thought was fine--but it did feel like every one of the friends were sex-repulsed. I would have liked for there to be mention that that is not representative of all ace people. Jack said he looked like "a prisoner of war" at one point after getting hit in the nose and that's..... bad. That is bad. I don't know how else to describe it.
I think without the problematic aspects of this book it would probably be 3 or 3.25 stars for me. The problems did take it down a bit for me. I would love to see more books with multiple aspec characters so one like this doesn't feel so heartbreaking if it ends up falling short.
Graphic: Abandonment, Ableism, and Child abuse
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Infidelity
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, and Blood
nobeliumreads's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, and Ableism
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Cursing
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Sexism