The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
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Book Reviews of The Good Thief
Book Review: Good vs Evil Mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm writing this review months after finishing the book. It was definitely one of my favorite reads in the past few months. If you enjoy escaping into another time and place with characters you can love or hate, then this book does the trick.
I read this book as a test of my interest in reading books taken out from the Library. I finished it much sooner than expected. It was a very good read, despite what some of the reviewers said about it.
I suppose if you're a reader like me who enjoys that Dickens style of descriptive writing, it would be a treasure. The story is very much a Dickens invention; Orphan taken out into the world, seeing all the cruelties of life. You end up rooting for the bad guys knowing that their really the good guys in disguise, maybe.
The author's use of the orphan's mysteriously lost hand is what I thought the genius of the story. That missing hand of the orphan's really drove the mystery as well as the sympathy of the story.
I believe any orphan who reads this as an adult will have a hard time putting it down. Because.........the author plants a small seed of hope that the character the orphan has attached himself to just might be his brother or father, with links to his mother who's identity he only holds a shred of clues to.
The history is something I really enjoyed. Graverobbing vs, what's that other word when you take the body but leave the clothes? Anyways, I learned plenty to add to my knowledge of 19th century life.
The conditions were perfect for this story. I didn't know that twins were looked upon as unlucky for the parents in those times. A touch of the mad scientist gives this story a gruesome reality. Torture, fights, drinking and thievery. A Wonderful Adventure of a Story.
Book Review: The Very Good Thief
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This is the kind of book that you only come upon once in a very long while; a book about the innocence of childhood and the search for the truth about one's self. Ren is an orphaned boy at St. Anthony's. The characteristic that sets him apart from the other boys his age is his missing left hand. he has no clue as to who his parents may have been or why he was left there in the rain as an infant on night. His days are spent with the other boys scraping and fighting for "survival" in the harsh conditions of the home with the the other orphaned boys. Until one day a man comes, and chose Ren out of all the other boys, despite his defect. This man, Benjamin Nab, sets him on the road of discovery, literally and figuratively.
Ren's journey is one of misadventures and manipulation by the adults who become his guardians. Told in a wonderfully engagingly manner, this book is difficult to put down. The character development is excellent, Tinti does a great job of slowly revealing who these people really are, so you get to know them in a realistic way. Intriguing plot developments keep the story moving along, and the pages turning.
I cannot help but compare this story to other beautiful and meaningful moralistic stories told through the voices and eyes of children like To Kill A Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ren is a hero for children of all ages. I highly recommend this book.
Book Review: Enjoyed by Well-Read Older Students
Summary: 5 Stars
Author Hannah Tinti sets her novel in an America of a bygone century when the completely vulnerable had only the protection of the rare and random, caring human heart. Ren, an orphan boy with an unexplained missing hand, finds that refuge in the company of a collection of some of society's most broken souls. The Good Thief couples the boy's discovery of compassion and loyalty with the discovery of his own mysterious and tragic past.
A ready-made classic, this story is told from the first-person perspective of Ren. Many multi-faceted characters with stories of their own enter and intertwine with his story as he is drawn irrevocably through his destiny. Suspense builds from the drum-beat of assaults on the reader's instinctual demarcations between right and wrong as well as from the increasingly precarious balance between the perils that befall the boy and his projectory toward revelation.
As an adventure story with a clear progression of events related through the perspective of a twelve-year old boy, The Good Thief has been enjoyed by some of my more well-read high school students and older middle school students. The complexity of moral values as well as a fair amount of gruesome scenes might be too much for younger middle school students, however. Also, the plot does have an old-fashioned feel to it that reluctant readers may not have the patience for, even though the pace definitely picks up as the story moves along. I enjoyed reading it, and I would recommend it to adults, particular reluctant-reading adults who may be looking for a book to share with their children.
Gaby Chapman
Book Review: engaging historical
Summary: 5 Stars
In New England at Saint Anthony's for Boys orphanage, twelve years old resident Ren wonders how he lost his left hand and who his biological parents are. He has tried to solve both puzzles for as long as he can remember, but has made no progress on either of his inquiries. He especially would like to find his family as he fears the Brothers who run the facility will soon toss him out into the real world.
Adult Benjamin Nab arrives at Saint Antony with an astonishing claim that Ren is his younger brother. He backs his declaration by explaining how the preadolescent lost his hand and ended up in an orphanage. The Brothers feels good for Ren that his older sibling has come to take him home. However, Benjamin and his partner Tom are con artists whose newest ploy is to use a young angelic looking cripple to expedite the swindle. This proves quite lucrative as Ren takes to a life of crime as if he was born to it; Benjamin and Tom are family to him until they reach North Umbrage where everything unravels.
This engaging historical stars three fascinating crooks with radically different personalities whose adventures in con crime is somewhat abated. Readers especially the young adult audience will relish Ren's escapades but also understand his obsessive need to belong to someone who cares about him even if that means criminal activities; this is similar to youngsters joining gangs. Hannah Tinti provides a deep look at THE GOOD THIEF whose psychological relational needs are the driving elements to this enjoyable nineteenth century character driven thriller.
Harriet Klausner
Book Review: An unexpected tale of gothic adventure
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I was pleasantly surprised by this gothic story about a one-handed boy named Ren, who is raised in a Catholic orphanage and adopted by a con artist mere months before his caretakers planned to consign him to the army. Although the monks question why anyone would want to adopt a boy with only one hand, Ren's savior, Benjamin Nab, weaves a convincing tale about Ren being his long lost brother who lost his hand when their family was attacked by indians. Benjamin saved him and placed the infant at the orphanage gates before heading off avenge their slaughtered family, which explains why it's only now that Benjamin has been able to return for the boy. The story isn't true - Benjamin is a con artist, after all - but the monks believe him and Ren's adventures with a dark world of schemes, ruthless mousetrap-manufacturing barons, chimney-dwelling dwarves and black-market doctors begins. He learns to lie and swindle with the best of them, yet never loses sight of his innate goodness, which reveals itself in untimely prayers and even a desire to save the soul of a murder unearthed during a grave digging expedition. Overall this 19th century New England tale is an unexpected and enchanting tale of gothic adventure.