The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti



Very rarely does a book live up to the hype...

Published in 2008.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY:
The New York Times Book Review
The Washington Post
San Francisco Chronicle
Kirkus Reviews

Winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award

You know how it is. You get a book because the blurbs on the cover tell you it is the most wonderful book since Stephen King was in diapers. This one has the audacity to have comparisons to Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn and Robert Louis Stevenson.

To be honest, I picked up The Good Thief figuring it would be wrong and I would skewer it in this review.

Well, I am pleased to say that I was wrong. This book DOES live up to that hype. It does belong in that august and lofty crowd. Somehow it pulls off being filled with literary allusions and homages to other works and being a unique work of its own.

There are multiple literary allusions that I noted, including Treasure Island, Sleepy Hollow, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, A Clockwork Orange, Faust, Milton and Terminator 2.

So, in short, pick it up. This one is a unique winner.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti.

Reviewed on August 18, 2008.

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