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A review by exquisite_ashes
The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
4.0
EDIT// I... think I liked this book more the second time around, but rereading my review from 2013, maybe I just didn't remember how much I actually did like it the first time. I stand by pretty much everything I said before, but I want to emphasize that I really really liked Locke & Sabetha being Adults in an Adult Relationship(TM) - I'm not talking about Explicit adultness here, but rather, the Adultness that comes from Learning How To Be In A Functional Relationship(TM). Also the being-an-actor-troupe flashback plot. Still so good.
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FINALLY.
I have been waiting for this book for five or six years now, so I spent a lot of time hugging it/being giddy over it before actually being able to open it. And here it is. At last. (This review does contain minor spoilers, but I try very hard to avoid most of them.)
And yes, though the announcement starts off about half the other reviews for this book, I will make it again: Sabetha.
We've been waiting for Sabetha from the beginning, catching glimpses of her, hearing mentions, seeing what she does to Locke, and never getting one single scene. And here she is! I fully expected to be in love with her by page 50 of this book. Unfortunately, I didn't actually fall in love with her until page 447, but I'll come back to that.
This book launched into something of a slow start. Though the opening was of course suspenseful (how would Locke escape the poison? when would Sabetha show up?), it then dwindled into:
a) Political explanations that have absolutely no interest for me. I am rarely attached to political plots; I don't care enough to really try and follow them. I was somewhat disappointed, too, that Locke and Jean were once again being forced into a scheme, rather than building one up for which they actually had some enthusiasm.
b) Flashbacks that lacked the charm that the Gentlemen Bastards' flashbacks usually have, since they mostly focused on a six-year-old falling in love at first sight, which... well, again, I'll come back to that.
It wasn't until about 250 pages in that I really started to get attached to what was happening - about page 300 is when I was suddenly, irrevocably excited. The politics took backseat to Locke/Sabetha in the present, and the flashbacks progressed to a suspenseful plot that actually tested the characters mingled with a gorgeous play-within-a-novel (that, incidentally, I would totally go see). After that, I could hardly put the book down (except for one incident of dramatic irony that was just too stressful for about ten minutes ;D). PLUS CALO AND GALDO. I'm sorry but I love them. I love you, Sanzas.
Sabetha, though. From Sabetha, I was expecting... the female version of Locke, someone with wit and flair and charm, charisma that could drown a fish (shut up that analogy makes sense), talent for thievery and scheming that matched Locke Lamora himself. It's possible that Sabetha had all those things, but pretty much all we got see was her being extremely grumpy about extremely stupid things. I mean, she didn't even steal anything in her first appearance, even though she and the other three had been sent on a mission in order to steal things. She just got kind of mad that Locke did his job and stole things? But I guess I can excuse that, she was eight years old or something, she couldn't have been expected to have wit and charm in full flower just yet. Except that continued to be the case in all the flashbacks, even as we passed eight years old. We just watched Locke follow her around like a puppy, and her kicking that puppy with fluctuating levels of force.
And Locke following her around like a puppy? I could have lived with that. I could have enjoyed that. Except for the part where he fell in love with her the absolute moment he first laid eyes on her when he was no more than seven years old. I am already entirely fed up with love at first sight; to then put it in the eyes of a five-to-seven-year-old is... not something that impresses me.
Now, Lynch did appear to throw us a bone there, bringing up Locke's backstory and... possible reasons for this thunderclap of love. The thing is... I don't buy it. I just don't. I would have much rather seen his love develop gradually, because I'm sorry but being in love with one redhead does not automatically make you in love with a completely different redhead. That whole potential backstory did not ring the slightest bit true for me anyway - perhaps if there had been more clues, more things you could look back at and use to say, Why yes, I can't believe I didn't see it before, that makes total sense. But there's pretty much nothing.
And yet somehow it still drives Sabetha to make that completely nonsensical decision at the end, after Locke has spent so much time apologizing for things he didn't actually do wrong, because I dunno, Lynch thought writing a female main character was too stressful, so he snatched her away from us just as we finally loved her? (And by "we" I mean "me." From the moment she rappelled out of the floating restaurant in her beautiful dress, yes, that is the instant in which she became awesome.)
Okay, that's a little unfair, but so is taking Sabetha away again.
Actually, that entire ending felt... extremely neglected. I mean... what?
Okay, I have now spent more than 800 words complaining about this book, which is ridiculous because I actually really liked it. Yeah, okay, so Sabetha and her relationship with Locke didn't really live up to my expectations. When you've waited for a book for five plus years, rereading its predecessors time and time again, it's pretty hard for that book to live up to all your expectations. It disappointed me, but it didn't ruin the whole thing for me. Like I said, after the first half, I was incredibly thrilled for most of it. Both plots (present and flashback) wove through intriguing misadventures, usually ending on cliffhangers that started to become extremely frustrating as they switched back to the opposite time frame. Locke remained hilarious, Jean remained beautifully loyal, Sabetha started to show off some of her complementary wit, and I didn't know how either one was going to end. The world developed more and more with every chapter - and Lynch dropped some hints that maybe, just maybe, the Eldren are going to at least play a part in a plot (if not actually appear), rather than just being mysterious, beautiful background noise - and honestly, every time Lynch did something fantastic with his world, he made me more and more excited about immediately dropping what I was doing to write my own world. (Wow, that sentence was long.) The descriptions were as gorgeous as usual - I want every single one of Sabetha's outfits please - the dialogue was not at all lacking, and Lynch's ability to write Locke and Jean into impossible corners and then write them out again with some measure of finesse and flair continues to be absolutely astounding.
And once again, I wrote another unnecessarily long review for a Locke Lamora book. This is why I didn't review Red Seas Under Red Skies after I read it.
Ughhhhhh The Thorn of Emberlain is going to be centuries in coming, isn't it?
---
...
...
...
FINALLY.
I have been waiting for this book for five or six years now, so I spent a lot of time hugging it/being giddy over it before actually being able to open it. And here it is. At last. (This review does contain minor spoilers, but I try very hard to avoid most of them.)
And yes, though the announcement starts off about half the other reviews for this book, I will make it again: Sabetha.
We've been waiting for Sabetha from the beginning, catching glimpses of her, hearing mentions, seeing what she does to Locke, and never getting one single scene. And here she is! I fully expected to be in love with her by page 50 of this book. Unfortunately, I didn't actually fall in love with her until page 447, but I'll come back to that.
This book launched into something of a slow start. Though the opening was of course suspenseful (how would Locke escape the poison? when would Sabetha show up?), it then dwindled into:
a) Political explanations that have absolutely no interest for me. I am rarely attached to political plots; I don't care enough to really try and follow them. I was somewhat disappointed, too, that Locke and Jean were once again being forced into a scheme, rather than building one up for which they actually had some enthusiasm.
b) Flashbacks that lacked the charm that the Gentlemen Bastards' flashbacks usually have, since they mostly focused on a six-year-old falling in love at first sight, which... well, again, I'll come back to that.
It wasn't until about 250 pages in that I really started to get attached to what was happening - about page 300 is when I was suddenly, irrevocably excited. The politics took backseat to Locke/Sabetha in the present, and the flashbacks progressed to a suspenseful plot that actually tested the characters mingled with a gorgeous play-within-a-novel (that, incidentally, I would totally go see). After that, I could hardly put the book down (except for one incident of dramatic irony that was just too stressful for about ten minutes ;D). PLUS CALO AND GALDO. I'm sorry but I love them. I love you, Sanzas.
Sabetha, though. From Sabetha, I was expecting... the female version of Locke, someone with wit and flair and charm, charisma that could drown a fish (shut up that analogy makes sense), talent for thievery and scheming that matched Locke Lamora himself. It's possible that Sabetha had all those things, but pretty much all we got see was her being extremely grumpy about extremely stupid things. I mean, she didn't even steal anything in her first appearance, even though she and the other three had been sent on a mission in order to steal things. She just got kind of mad that Locke did his job and stole things? But I guess I can excuse that, she was eight years old or something, she couldn't have been expected to have wit and charm in full flower just yet. Except that continued to be the case in all the flashbacks, even as we passed eight years old. We just watched Locke follow her around like a puppy, and her kicking that puppy with fluctuating levels of force.
And Locke following her around like a puppy? I could have lived with that. I could have enjoyed that. Except for the part where he fell in love with her the absolute moment he first laid eyes on her when he was no more than seven years old. I am already entirely fed up with love at first sight; to then put it in the eyes of a five-to-seven-year-old is... not something that impresses me.
Now, Lynch did appear to throw us a bone there, bringing up Locke's backstory and... possible reasons for this thunderclap of love. The thing is... I don't buy it. I just don't. I would have much rather seen his love develop gradually, because I'm sorry but being in love with one redhead does not automatically make you in love with a completely different redhead. That whole potential backstory did not ring the slightest bit true for me anyway - perhaps if there had been more clues, more things you could look back at and use to say, Why yes, I can't believe I didn't see it before, that makes total sense. But there's pretty much nothing.
And yet somehow it still drives Sabetha to make that completely nonsensical decision at the end, after Locke has spent so much time apologizing for things he didn't actually do wrong, because I dunno, Lynch thought writing a female main character was too stressful, so he snatched her away from us just as we finally loved her? (And by "we" I mean "me." From the moment she rappelled out of the floating restaurant in her beautiful dress, yes, that is the instant in which she became awesome.)
Okay, that's a little unfair, but so is taking Sabetha away again.
Actually, that entire ending felt... extremely neglected. I mean... what?
Okay, I have now spent more than 800 words complaining about this book, which is ridiculous because I actually really liked it. Yeah, okay, so Sabetha and her relationship with Locke didn't really live up to my expectations. When you've waited for a book for five plus years, rereading its predecessors time and time again, it's pretty hard for that book to live up to all your expectations. It disappointed me, but it didn't ruin the whole thing for me. Like I said, after the first half, I was incredibly thrilled for most of it. Both plots (present and flashback) wove through intriguing misadventures, usually ending on cliffhangers that started to become extremely frustrating as they switched back to the opposite time frame. Locke remained hilarious, Jean remained beautifully loyal, Sabetha started to show off some of her complementary wit, and I didn't know how either one was going to end. The world developed more and more with every chapter - and Lynch dropped some hints that maybe, just maybe, the Eldren are going to at least play a part in a plot (if not actually appear), rather than just being mysterious, beautiful background noise - and honestly, every time Lynch did something fantastic with his world, he made me more and more excited about immediately dropping what I was doing to write my own world. (Wow, that sentence was long.) The descriptions were as gorgeous as usual - I want every single one of Sabetha's outfits please - the dialogue was not at all lacking, and Lynch's ability to write Locke and Jean into impossible corners and then write them out again with some measure of finesse and flair continues to be absolutely astounding.
And once again, I wrote another unnecessarily long review for a Locke Lamora book. This is why I didn't review Red Seas Under Red Skies after I read it.
Ughhhhhh The Thorn of Emberlain is going to be centuries in coming, isn't it?