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janyriy 's review for:
The Palace Job
by Patrick Weekes
2.1 ⭐️
Okay. Ooookay. I think this book needs a longer review. Because so much happened and I'm mad. No, maybe not mad. Mildly disappointed.
A bit of backstory: I love heist stories, they're improbable, most of the time absolutely insane and would never work in a world that just doesn't adhere to someone playing 3D mind chess with 50 layers. But the payoff!! And the crew!!
Anyways, after I read [b:Six of Crows|23437156|Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628438817l/23437156._SX50_.jpg|42077459] I realized there's one thing I love more than heist stories: Fantasy heist stories. And naturally I wanted more, so first thing I did was read [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora|29588376|The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)|Scott Lynch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458646334l/29588376._SY75_.jpg|2116675] next and tbh, I didn't fall in love with it. But when I poked through the reviews, I found someone who didn't like TLOLL much either and recommended this book.
So here we are I guess.
And you know what?
Neh.
It's not that good.
The plot is very simple: Loch, disgraced ex-military is in prison and wants to steal thing back someone stole from her family. It's a good motive, that over the course of over 400 pages gets derailed by some weird prophecy side plot that feels completely wedged in. I just wanted my heist!! Why do authors think every fantasy book needs some prophecy? Plus, it was completely obvious who the prophecy spoke of - which leads me to the next thing: The book is VERY predictable. At times it feels like it was written to be a comedy movie and you can already tell what will happen next because you've seen it a hundred times before.
I didn't really like the crew either, they're supposed to be really colorful and fun but to me they were just bland shells that sometimes didn't even act like the characters they had been established as. The writing and jokes are very immature and it feels like the author put some phrases in there that sounded cool in his head, no matter if they fitted the situation or not.
But back to the heist: it's a fantasy heist, so naturally there are fantasy elements involved. Magic is cool. But it's not so cool when that magic is never fully explained, basically does whatever or is so complicated that you can't follow what they're trying to do anyways. So you just sit there and nod but have no chance of grasping what exactly it is they're trying to do.
And in the end, they didn't even have much of a master plan. Most of what they did involved getting inside somewhere, fucking up, creating a commotion and fleeing in a panic and with massive amounts of destruction.
And then these idiots use their real names in front of guards, freely share their contacts and hiding place, and run around the city without a care in the world. You should think someone would have put up posters and handed out flyers with their names and faces on them but pssssh what do I know.
And what's more, it feels again like an author applying his 21th century American principles to a world that pretends to be entirely different. It was more like a parable at times and the way he dealt with different ethnicities was...awkward, to put it bluntly. Let's just say there was an attempt but it wasn't handled very gracefully.
It might be a fun read if you're 15 or if you can turn your mind off for a bit, but if none of those things apply I'd skip this one.
Okay. Ooookay. I think this book needs a longer review. Because so much happened and I'm mad. No, maybe not mad. Mildly disappointed.
A bit of backstory: I love heist stories, they're improbable, most of the time absolutely insane and would never work in a world that just doesn't adhere to someone playing 3D mind chess with 50 layers. But the payoff!! And the crew!!
Anyways, after I read [b:Six of Crows|23437156|Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628438817l/23437156._SX50_.jpg|42077459] I realized there's one thing I love more than heist stories: Fantasy heist stories. And naturally I wanted more, so first thing I did was read [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora|29588376|The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)|Scott Lynch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458646334l/29588376._SY75_.jpg|2116675] next and tbh, I didn't fall in love with it. But when I poked through the reviews, I found someone who didn't like TLOLL much either and recommended this book.
So here we are I guess.
And you know what?
Neh.
It's not that good.
The plot is very simple: Loch, disgraced ex-military is in prison and wants to steal thing back someone stole from her family. It's a good motive, that over the course of over 400 pages gets derailed by some weird prophecy side plot that feels completely wedged in. I just wanted my heist!! Why do authors think every fantasy book needs some prophecy? Plus, it was completely obvious who the prophecy spoke of - which leads me to the next thing: The book is VERY predictable. At times it feels like it was written to be a comedy movie and you can already tell what will happen next because you've seen it a hundred times before.
I didn't really like the crew either, they're supposed to be really colorful and fun but to me they were just bland shells that sometimes didn't even act like the characters they had been established as. The writing and jokes are very immature and it feels like the author put some phrases in there that sounded cool in his head, no matter if they fitted the situation or not.
Spoiler
And when he wrote in a freaking satyr with a glowing dick who almost raped one of the crew I wanted to nope the fuck out of there.But back to the heist: it's a fantasy heist, so naturally there are fantasy elements involved. Magic is cool. But it's not so cool when that magic is never fully explained, basically does whatever or is so complicated that you can't follow what they're trying to do anyways. So you just sit there and nod but have no chance of grasping what exactly it is they're trying to do.
And in the end, they didn't even have much of a master plan. Most of what they did involved getting inside somewhere, fucking up, creating a commotion and fleeing in a panic and with massive amounts of destruction.
And then these idiots use their real names in front of guards, freely share their contacts and hiding place, and run around the city without a care in the world. You should think someone would have put up posters and handed out flyers with their names and faces on them but pssssh what do I know.
And what's more, it feels again like an author applying his 21th century American principles to a world that pretends to be entirely different. It was more like a parable at times and the way he dealt with different ethnicities was...awkward, to put it bluntly. Let's just say there was an attempt but it wasn't handled very gracefully.
It might be a fun read if you're 15 or if you can turn your mind off for a bit, but if none of those things apply I'd skip this one.