I guess my super niche sweet spot is genre heist novels because even after my disappointment with the first in the Gentlemen Bastards series, I’m still working through them. I got a lot of feedback on that review, and y’all did warn me that the quality of the books was going to dip, so I was prepared. And lowering my expectations definitely helped! Plus, you know what?
This book has cats.
The book also introduces two female characters of substance, which was nice to see. There had been a few in Lies of Locke Lamora but mostly in the background. He has a thing for villains with battle-hardened women as their second-in-command. This book has a pretty awesome pirate captain and first mate (so … still with the battle-hardened woman as second in command, but the pirate captain is neither male or a villain, so there’s that!)
And I enjoy fallible characters. Locke Lamora has always been able to make anything happen, so it was nice to see him fail so utterly at sailing. And (spoiler) get the rug swept out from under him at the end!
The ending was hugely rushed, though. Reading on a kindle is funny because you don’t really know what page you’re on, but you know precisely what percentage of the book you’ve read. I was something like 92% done before Lynch started to wrap up all the myriad plotlines he had running throughout the books. You get whiplash watching everything come together.
I’ll read the third one!
Next up: Sabetha! Who gives Locke a delightful set-down with respect to his male privilege.
But the third book is a bit of a slog.
Okay. You sold me with the cats. I enjoyed the first one, but still haven’t picked up the second. Adding to my audible pile!