REview: The Thief by Megan whalen turner

1.5/5 stars

I must have read a different book than everybody else had because I cannot for the life of me comprehend how this book has won any literal awards. 

As an avid fantasy reader I can tell you that this book is as close to a "riveting fantasy novel" as flour is to being a spice.
Why flour you ask?
Beuase it reminds me of this book - dry, bland and boring.  

​And I really tried to tie this book all of the chances I could. I wanted to dnf it after 30 pages, but:
1. I was told that it gets much better as the book goes on. It didn't.
2. I was told that series get much, much better. I  still have to see that for myself. One day.
3. I scored 4 books from this series at a thrift store for dirt cheap in mint condition, so I wanted to give it a chance before I donate all of them back and forget I ever wasted my time on them. 

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But Iryna, what about that awesome twist at the end? 
I'm sorry, but that twist? I guessed "the twist" pretty early in the beginning of the book. I'm not saying that I'm Sherlock Holmes (okay sometimes I pretend I am), but after reading many fantasy books that twist is not so twisty anymore - pretty standard trick, if you ask me. 

​I can sum up about 85 percent of this book in few sentences.
​Gen (main character) whines, Gen is tired, Gen is hungry, Gen is being a smart mouth, Gen is hungry, Gen is tired, Gen is hungry. The words "I'm hungry" and "so I took a nap" were probably said at least 20 times. If you are looking for the world's most annoying fiction character, you may stop now. Gen got the prize (in my eyes at least). The rest 15 percent were taken up with all the action that this book decided to throw at us and some political intrigues. By that point I just wanted it all to be just over so I could move on with my reading life. 
​
The book is a 280 pages, and it took me 9 days to read it. 9 days! Why? Because I was so unbelievably, out of my mind, ripping my hair out - bored. 
Was the twist at the end worth the 200 pages of redundancy and absolutely nothing happening? No, no it was not. 

I know I sound very bitter right now, but I was genuinely excited for this book. And it let me down, big time. I hated the first person narrative, and I loathed Gen as a narrator even more. Side characters were bland, world building was okay at best and the plot didn't go anywhere till the last 30 pages. 

​Despite all of this I will (not soon, but sometime) continue with the book 2. I didn't suffer through this for nothing, I will see for myself if the series do indeed get better. My hopes are very low though. Lower than low. 
Also I looked ahead and book 2 is written in third person, which is an improvement because I don't like first person narration fantasy, BUT who writes first book in first person and then switches to the third person? Who does that? Why?