Thank you Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for sending me an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!
Two Second Review
★★★★½ // 4.5 s t a r s
In the most basic sense, Little Thieves is about Vanja Schmidt, the goddaughter of Fortune and Death who is trying to leave their thrall in order to not become their servant and ends up in numerous dilemmas while trying to "earn" money for her escape.
The Book
Trigger Warnings: rape, sexual harassment
Release Date: October 19, 2021
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Genre(s): YA, Fantasy, Retelling, Romance
Series?: no
Page Count: 512
Premise:
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.
Review
Literally drafted this in the car so fast, maybe movement made the juices flow…Wait that sounded so wrong, ignore. Little Thieves. A work of art at this point. It’s honestly difficult to explain why I enjoyed this book so much, but let’s get to brain dumping.
Little Thieves is a loose retelling of The Goose Girl about a girl named Vanja who was given away by her mother to Fortune and Death when she was a youngin. Vanja goes on to become a servant, take the life (not like kill like literally become, but not possess) of the princess who’s maid she used to be with the help of some enchanted pearls, become a thief to steal money so she can leave her life, to ultimately getting caught. The book continues on with her “catching” and all the problems that arise with that including a scrawny yet adorable boy, curses, lots of rubies, old friends (and enemies?), and an innocent little shapeshifting thing who we swear to protect with our life.
I'm doing a separated review again kinda like The Taking of Jake Livingston because I actually have things to say in a cohesive way (for once). So here we go…
The world. This book had some of my most favorite world-building that I've read in a long, long time. It somehow managed to convey so much without explaining barely anything. The info dump count: try 0. And in all books there's an info dump, so that goes to say how much I didn't mind because it managed to keep me engaged enough that it didn't feel like an info dump at all. Also, the mini chapters(?) that come before the actual plot at each "tale" were great. The weird sounding third-person almost formed a detachment from the book and you're looking on from a bystander type of point-of-view before you obviously jump back into the book.
So the world/setting in Little Thieves is fairly average fantasy sort of setting. There's a castle, a village, some markets, a river (because that's basically necessary), a forest (again, same). That basically sounds medieval (ish) and that really is what it is. Also, very much German (I don't think I actually processed that until Vanja went off with her sausage jokes but called them wurst something…brb gonna go find a quote). Alright here we are, Ragne (the shapeshifter I mentioned said, "'One shouted that she is selling the wurstkuss. Why would…'" Yeah, Google Translate that bad boy, it's exactly what you're thinking but oh my lord so much more literal *crying emoji because it's seriously never been more necessary, ah Ragne*.
Alright, moving on: the characters. Vanja Schmidt (who had like three other names in the book, it was kind of confusing). Emeric Conrad. Ragne Last-Name-Unknown-And-Probably-Nonexistant. Gisele Really-Long-Last-Name-That-I-Will-Not-Bother-Typing. And, Adalbrecht von Reigenback. Okay, so Vanja has quite a few flaws that are actually really prominent through the book, but the most focused (and obvious one) is basically her self-esteem (or lack, thereof). Not necessarily self-esteem, I suppose but more like not having high enough thoughts of herself that she can't imagine anyone caring about her enough that she only relies on herself until she realized that she doesn't need to (and that basically takes her the entire novel). But she's also such a great MC protagonist because she's so two-sided and oh so hilarious. I would give a quarter my life for Vanja Schmidt, for real. The other quarter is for Emeric and the last half is for Ragne. Emeric. A literal bean of a boy. It's been so long since I've read about an innocent acting love interest, like honestly. Authors have to let go of morally gray and give me wholesome fluff because I would die for Emeric way before, oh I don't know, Azriel, I guess that's what everyone thinks of first with morally gray right…Ragne as we've been over is a super weird (and by weird I mean extremely cool) shapeshifter who can turn into humans too. Gisele, former princess before tea with Vanja happens. And, our antagonist, barf-worthy, Adalbrecht von Barfenback. Just, ew. Fuck him. That is all. (Wow, that paragraph ended up being so long, gosh.)
❝ Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal kingdoms, but only
one goes to the gallows. ❞
Anyway, on that extremely long note. I absolutely adored Little Thieves. It's one of the best fantasy books I've read and almost better because of it's simplicity. It was just so easy to read (predictable, albeit which is the reason I dropped half a star). But, truly, it's amazing. Usually I will drop ratings a few days after reading them but I already know this book has made it onto comfort level reread so, READ IT.
Tropes…
— (minor) enemies-to-lovers
— greed = bad
— good (ish) thief
— life-takover (not possession, I explained it somewhere in the review kinda)
Read…If You Liked…
Six Crimson Cranes (retelling central)
A Darker Shade of Magic (the world gives similar vibes, and also I just love it so)
Watch…If You Liked…
Ocean's Eleven (also Thirteen)
Another Cinderella Story (because it's a retelling and the best Cinderella one at that, no argument)
ADD LITTLE THIEVES TO YOUR GOODREADS AND STORYGRAPH SHELVES
random q to drop comments <3
What is your comfort book?
(that goes to Rogue Wave or Percy Jackson
[literally any of them] for sure)
