My commitment to re-reading has proven to be the best idea of the year. It’s been great to go back to favorites of 10 to 20 years ago, but most of all, it has given me the opportunity to re-evaluate my position on Megan Whalen Turner’s The Queen’s Thief series.
They’re favorites of friends whose opinion I really respect, and after reading the first two the first time around I thought them ok, but failed to see what the fuss was about. This time around, I really liked The Thief, thoroughly enjoyed The Queen of Attolia, but The King of Attolia… well, this one entered the year’s top 5 and propelled them all to my group of favorites series of all time. Still have A Conspiracy of Kings in the TBR because I’m all about delayed gratification.
They’ve also entered my list of books I can wholeheartedly recommend to everyone, independently of age, sex or literary genre preferences. I can recommend them to people who read, who don’t read, who don’t read YA, and who don’t read fantasy. There is enough depth, character building, romance, power play and, ultimately, just good story-telling, to please everyone.
With The King of Attolia I gained for MWT the sort of awed respect that I reserve only for the likes of Dorothy Dunnett and Patrick O’Brian (and with a *gasp* YA book!). She was goooood and she never assumes the readers are slow-witted and need to be explained everything. My kinda writer.
Throughout the series we follow the main character – Gen – closely and by the third book we know just how clever and sneaky he is, so to keep us on our toes, MWT writes the story from the POV of someone who is oblivious to Gen’s skills. We know Gen’s up to something, but can make guessed from what the narrator tells us. I can only imagine how difficult this must be to pull off without frustrating the reader, but she did it perfectly, and the result is an intellectually stimulating and fun revelry.
And the romantic angle – oh my! The relationship between Gen and Irene is right up my alley because, again, I don’t need to be spelled out everything to understand it. In The King of Attolia we’re not privy to what’s going on between them, but there are scenes that, without being explicit, have the emotional impact of a Pride & Prejudice proposal. Anyone who’s not in love with Gen by this point must have a heart of stone.
I won’t go too deeply into the plot to avoid spoilers, just a little teaser: when the series starts we meet a young thief called Gen (short for Eugenides) who boasts he can steal anything. Ready to test these claims, a Magus challenges him to steal an object that can change the precarious balance of the region’s three kingdoms…
Oh, the feeling of discovering new favorites! Makes life worth while 🙂
***
Other thoughts on individual books: Dear Author on #1, #2 and #3, Chiachic’s Book Nook, Steph Su Reads #1 and #2, The Literate Mother, Book Girl of Mur-y-Castlell #1 and #2, It’s All About Books, Jacus’ Book Blog, bookshelves of doom, birdbrain(ed) book blog, let’s eat grandpa, Presenting Lenore, Literary Fangirl Book Reviews, Fyrefly (yours?)
Other thoughts on the series and on MWT: the bluestocking society, My Sister’s Bookshelf, Jenny’s Books (yours?)
12 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 12, 2012 at 4:32 pm
aartichapati
I was introduced to this series via an anonymous blog commenter and have been forever grateful since that time. I LOVE Gen. I admit I have not fully warmed to Irene yet, but I am hoping that she or Eddis gets the POV in the next book.
November 12, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Ana @ things mean a lot
*stars your post and saves it for later* I’ve got a date with these books in January 😀 #ridiculouslyexcited
November 12, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Audra (Unabridged Chick)
Oh, wow — I’ve never heard of this series or the author, but obviously, I need to get on this, stat!
November 12, 2012 at 10:25 pm
Teresa (@teresasreading)
I commend you for rereading something that you were less than thrilled with the first time. I don’t know if I would have done it. I guess I may be missing out on a lot then…
I’m thinking I may need to check out this series!
November 13, 2012 at 2:02 am
Cori
When I read them, I also failed to see what the fuss was about. Perhaps I’ll give them another shot in 10 years. 🙂
November 13, 2012 at 3:21 am
Jenny
The King of Attolia is the best one of the series, I think. A Conspiracy of Kings is very good too and I was pleased to see dear sweet Sophos again, but The King of Attolia really is the best. The way she constructs that story — the protagonist slowly coming to realize what Gen is — amazes me every time.
November 13, 2012 at 5:31 am
Chachic
Yay, I’m so glad the series has made it to your list of favorites! I fell in love with Queen of Attolia and never looked back. It’s still my favorite YA series and I had so much fun organizing Queen’s Thief Week earlier this year – thanks for linking to MWT’s guest post. 🙂
November 13, 2012 at 7:12 am
heidenkind
The Queen of Attolia is one of my favorite books of all time. LOVE it. The King Attolia seemed like it retreaded the path of Queen, but I had super-high expectations for it.
I’m interested to see what you think of Conspiracy of Kings. Unlike the other books, Gen isn’t the main character. Here’s my review if you’re interested: http://heidenkind.blogspot.com/2010/04/conspiracy-of-kings-by-megan-whalen.html
November 13, 2012 at 11:39 am
Charlie
I’ve seen the books around, but never thought to add them to my list, which is crazy because the covers are the sort that would catch my eye and the story sounds good. That has now changed, they’ve been added 🙂
November 18, 2012 at 5:47 am
Kailana
I want the next book!! I am getting impatient. 🙂
November 19, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Joanna @ CreateYourWorld
I have to read this then, if it’s that good!! Perhaps it should even go on my Xmas list 🙂
January 4, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Best of 2012 « The Sleepless Reader
[…] The King of Attolia (The Queen’s Thief #3) by Megan Whalen Turner […]