The Good Thief, by Hanna Tinti

The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti

I read the inside flap at the library, thought: sounds good….

I tried to read it and couldn’t. It’s one of those things I can’t really explain…it just failed to hold my attention. So, I put it up and read something else. Or played a lot of video games. Something. However, Ma read it and I made her tell me what it was about—EVERYTHING. I made her spoil the entire thing for me. Even though I could not make myself read the book, I still felt the need to know the entire story. And you know what? It totally made me want to read the book.

And I did.

And it was good.

Very short synopsis: Orphaned Ren is taken in by a pair of thieves, has adventures, ends up actually finding out why he’s orphaned and why he lost his left hand as a baby.

Favorite characters:

Mrs. Sands, the boardinghouse owner who’s lost most of her hearing—she shouts, she’s very brusque, and rough with the main character, Ren, but she’s also very caring. She has a big heart without being all gushy.

Dolly—he’s a murderer, he tells you that right off. He’s also mildly retarded, but that takes you longer to figure out. When the character is introduced he’s just gone through a pretty traumatic experience, so I kept blaming his faults on that, but nope, he’s a little retarded. Dolly is nearly unstoppable, and he’s strong and single-minded, and fiercely loyal to Ren, which is why he’s one of my favorites. Ok, the favorite. Yes, he killed people, but he’s practically a giant, and very stupid, so using his physical gifts is the only way he’s going to make it in this world, and although they never go very deep into his past I’m betting if they did you’d find out that he didn’t just start out as a hitman because he liked it. I bet you’d find out the poor dude stumbled into the profession and didn’t know any better to stop. And, furthermore, he DID stop it, for Ren, because he cares for Ren and Ren asked him not to. After meeting Ren, he only killed out of necessity.

Tom is way down on my list, but I felt I needed more than two characters or it would look like the book didn’t offer much. Tom decides, with his drunken wisdom, that Ren needs his pals. Boys need their mates! He says it many times. So he disappears for a few days and comes stumbling back home with Ren’s friends from the orphanage, and he makes them call him “Pa” and it looked like a huge mistake at first, but by the end I felt there was genuine affection between the 3 of them. I just thought it was cute.

If I cared to, I’d put some passages from the book in here because some parts of this are pretty funny, but I’m too lazy. So trust me, some parts are pretty funny.

Ooooooh, some parts are sad, though. So, warning. The part with the horse just made me feel sick.