Review: Little Thieves by Margret Owen
I had such an excellent time reading this book.
I haven't read much fantasy or much YA in recent months and this book absolutely reminded me that I should rectify both of those things. I was so invested in this story.
My little criticisms shall come first. I occasionally found the narration style a tough overwrought. The tongue and cheek telling of a tale was mostly a delight but occasionally over explained. I would have liked slightly more radical politics from Vanja, she was slightly more forgiving of Gisele than I felt made sense. She starts the book very eat the rich and that is mostly a thread that is done well, but the book focused a little bit more on individual actions than I would have prefered. But this is quite slight. I also tend to be annoyed when the final reveal is hidden from the reader, but I had figured it out already so this bothered me less than usual. I did think it took the characters too long to figure out the legal matter they were going to face, but that can be explained by it being targeted at a younger age group.
Overall I was really delighted by this book. I wanted to be reading it whenever I could not be. It made me cry three times. I constantly wanted to see what was coming next, and I really loved the cast of characters.
Vanja, the narrator, is particularly well written. She is such an excellent exploration of the ways past trauma can cause maladaptive behaviors in later life. Most of the time her intense suspicion and wairyness are incredibly helpful to her, but there is an excellent moment in this book where Vanja is reacting to trauma in a way that is self sabotaging and Owens writes this in an incredibly heart wrenching and empathy building way. I truly ached for Vanja many times in this book. Every choice she makes is so incredibly understandable even when the reader can identify the 'better' choice to make. She is also just a fun character. She is clever and playful and vindictive, which is truly delightful to read.
This book has lots of casual queer representation. This isn't a world free of homophobia, but it is a world where most people who aren't cruel are generally accepting of queer people. We get lots of background queer people, including references to binary trans people and some on page nonbinary or gender fluid people. There are sapphic secondary characters (at least four), and the main romance is a girl and a boy but they are both presented as demisexual.
I really loved the romance in this book. It was quite sweet, but also had incredibly high stakes attached. Owen makes the pair excellent foils to each other and does not shy away from giving them very serious conflict. She really shows the ways in which the two deeply understand each other early on, then shows the reader the deep ways in which they misunderstand each other. Which obviously had disastrous consequences. Owen builds this dynamic so excellently. I really adored it.
In general Owen just layers conflict really well. I was constantly invested in what was coming. There were so many interesting threads of this plot and I was glued to the page to see what was coming up next. I found the plot intellectually interesting before I found it emotionally enthralling, but before long I was invested in both aspects equally.
I really loved reading this book. I shall have to dive into Owen's back catalog and I will certainly read whatever she writes next.
I gave this book five stars.
