A review by luckykosmos
Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Waffling between 4.5 and 4.75 but rounding down in the hopes that book 2 truly shines. I LOVED this book, especially the opening 200 pages - setting the stage for their dynamics with one another before rocketing them back to the 'real world', which here means deceitful politics and family histories, sets up an intricate board of characters. The prose was wonderful, I adored all of the characters, and the plot felt like it had hundreds of moving pieces, each subtly planted until the right moment. And-- what on earth does that ending mean? As someone who hasn't read another Pearson book, consider me deeply intrigued. My biggest qualm was a lack of textual diversity - in my mind, certain characters are certain ethnicities, but nothing is ever more than hinted at. There are no visible LGBTQ+ characters, and the only fat or disabled characters are shown to be greedy or unfit leader. In text, these examples are minor and date the book (oh, how strange it is for a book from 2016 to be dated!) but it would overjoy me to see this hole patched up in the sequel. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings