A review by hellobookbird
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

3.0

I am a master of foolhardy plans. I have so much practice I consider them professional risks.

The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

"It is too bad for you that intelligence does not always attend gifts such as yours, and fortunate for me that it is not your intelligence I am interested in, but your skill."

I'm going to sum up this book in two sentences: The first half is an obscenely long journey where literally nothing of much note happens. The second half saved the novel because the item is finally obtained and things start to get really interesting.

Gen was the single reason why I kept trucking along because I don't think I've ever been charmed by such an obviously guttertrash thief. Honestly! I just had to see how his role played out. In the beginning we think his only loves are his reputation, food, and sleep as he can't be bothered to be much of a help in any other way. And why should he? He only agreed to steal an item. Until it was time to steal said item, it wasn't his problem.

The journey was tedious and boring but speckled with Gen's humor as he offers (unsolicited) opinions on his companion's conversations. He has just the right amount of cleverness mixed with obvious sardonic selfishness.

Like a good tool, for instance, a very well-behaved hammer, I stretched out by the fire and went to sleep.

And then finally! The stone theft happens, bringing in the actual gods that you'd heard about on the way to the stone's location.

And the ending. It was enough to bump my rating by a star. I'd suspected something LIKE it, but got it wrong, and not NEAR the extent of it. While I had to suspend some belief on it, it quite literally flips the entire story on its head and makes you rethink everything you thought you knew up to this point. It's absolutely clear that this is one of those series that starts slow and then gets better the further you get.

Suffice it to say, while this was just an okay read, I'm excited to see where the series goes now.

Recommended as a single read (from the library) as a pre-cursor to the sequel: [b:The Queen of Atolia].