Review | LITTLE THIEVES by Margaret Owen

Review of LITTLE THIEVES by Margaret Owen

“I think there are lives that make it easy to be good. Or what most people call good. When you have wealth, status, family, it’s easy to be a saint, it costs you nothing. I can’t say if you’re a good person or not. But the more I know of you, the more I understand that the world keeps making you choose between survival and martyrdom. No one should fault you for wanting to live.”

With its unique plot and fantastic characters, LITTLE THIEVES is hands down a 5-star read

LITTLE THIEVES is one of the best books I have read this year. The storyline is so unique, I don’t know how Owen came up with it, but it gripped me from the very first page. Both the world-building and storyline were fantastic, and the characters were very refreshing. This book is something new. I don’t think I have ever read a young adult book that’s quite like LITTLE THIEVES.

Synopsis

Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl…

Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love–and she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele’s dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back… by stealing Gisele’s life for herself.

The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.

Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja’s tail, she’ll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.

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Review

I’m obsessed by this cover. It’s absolutely stunning.

I think this book is amazing. I was very surprised by the plot of LITTLE THIEVES. I was a bit scared because I wasn’t all too sure this kind of plot was going to work for a young adult book, but oh how it did.

The characters in LITTLE THIEVES are each so unique. What I especially loved about them is the fact that they aren’t all ‘good people’ or what it is to be considered a good person. I’m a huge fan of the pairings in the book, they felt very natural and I do ship them all. I also especially loved the friendships in LITTLE THIEVES.

Margaret Owen is in my opinion underrated. I have read her first two books and I really liked them, but I feel like not a lot of people have read THE MERCIFUL CROW series. I absolutely love her writing style. It is so addictive. Vanja – our antiheroine – is a selfish character who only looks out for herself (because no one else looks out for her), and Owen knows how to write her in such a manner that you can’t help but love her. Vanja had a complicated childhood which makes her very sceptical of everyone and everything. But even though she made wrong choices in LITTLE THIEVES, I understood where they were coming from.

I like that LITTLE THIEVES is a standalone, but I’m also sad about it because I really want to see more of this world and these characters.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, a thousand times yes! Go preorder LITTLE THIEVES or go buy it once it comes out.

eArc provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Details

Trigger warnings
Death, death of a loved one, betrayal, monsters
Representation
Demisexual mc, demisexual love interest, sapphic side characters, black side character
Genre
Fantasy (young adult)
Pages
512
Publication date
October 19th, 2021
Publisher
Hodder & Stoughton
About the author
Born and raised at the end of the Oregon Trail, Margaret Owen spent her childhood haunting the halls of Powell’s Books. After earning her degree in Japanese, her love of espresso called her north to Seattle, where she worked in everything from thrift stores to presidential campaigns. The common thread between every job can be summed up as: lessons were learned.

She now spends her days wrestling disgruntled characters onto the page, and negotiating a long-term hostage situation with her two monstrous cats. (There is surprisingly little difference between the two.)