The Thief

We know from the beginning of this book that Gen is a liar. We see him lying, pretty much constantly, to everyone he meets. And yet the twist ending of this book, when all lies drop away, and all truths are revealed, is so surprising and satisfying, I can hardly stand it.

The squee, the squee! That twist reframes the entire plot of the book, and I had to immediately flip right back to the first page and read it again. Avoid spoilers; grab this book and let it take you for a ride.

I appreciate that Gen’s journey of faith is a rather begrudging one. He certainly doesn’t want the gods involved in his life. Yet he is honorable (despite many appearances to the contrary) and he accomplishes, at great cost to himself, the vital task he sets out to do. His courage, despite his complaining, is still courage (and I wonder if his complaining was a mask for his fear). Sometimes faith feels like that—doing what is right even when you would rather do anything else. And sometimes that is the hardest journey of all.

Since I have a lot of pretty heavy hitters on this list, I figured I’d end on a lighter favorite. Gen is one of my favorite characters of all time: resourceful, intelligent, and laughably indolent, he’s such a joy to follow on his adventure with a motley crew on a journey to find and steal an ancient artifact that may or may not exist. The world-building is intricate and carefully crafted, but the characters and their complicated relationships are what bring this book to life. No one is who they seem, and the scale of the adventure just continues to… show more.

I still remember the first time I read The Thief. I was twelve or thirteen, and I could tell right away that this would be a lush historical novel set in a Greco-inspired ancient world of megarons and olive groves. The first part had plenty of conversations about the gods, but I didn’t think they would actually show up in the story. 

Until they did. 

The Thief opened up a window of possibilities in my young authorial soul. I realized that my very favorite stories pulled back the rug of this world and let you see the magical foundation… show more.

This book is the ultimate trickster tale. I fell in love with the book (and the whole series) when I realized that Megan Whalen Turner is an expert at creating unreliable narrators: storytellers who either can’t see the truth or intentionally hide the truth. (I won’t tell you which it is for The Thief!) At the end of the book, everything is turned on its head, and the first thing you want to do is go back to the beginning and read it all over to figure out how you missed it! The Thief’s secret is a stunner.