The Good Thief | Hannah Tinti | BELIEVE the hype.

The Good Thief | Hannah Tinti | A wonderful adventure

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The Good Thief

	The Good Thief Hannah Tinti The Dial Press, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 101 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Richly imagined, gothically spooky, and replete with the ingenious storytelling ability of a born novelist, The Good Thief introduces one of the most appealing young heroes in contemporary fiction and ratifies Hannah Tinti as one of our most exciting new talents.

Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony?s Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own and is terrified of the day he will be sent alone into the world.

But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren?s long-lost brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to release the boy and to give Ren some hope. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through a New England of whaling towns and meadowed farmlands, Ren is introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he?s lost once again. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds the key to his future, but to his past as well.

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BELIEVE the hype.

I have been waiting for this amazing One Story editor and author's newest book since I heard it was being released. Published to rave reviews and for good reason, The Good Thief is a book that you won't soon regret.

I loved the amazing, Dickensian tone that contemporary authors don't tackle as much, sympathetically drawn characters and compelling narrative. This book is haunting and I found myself lying awake at night picking it back up because I needed to know what happened next, leading to a few bleary-eyed days at work! Because the plot has been detailed so much already I won't go into that but PLEASE do yourself a favor and read this. And then if you haven't already, read Animal Crackers.

Hannah Tinti is a FORCE and a writer to be watched and grateful for!!!

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A wonderful adventure

I never understood the term "instant classic" until I read this book. This is beautifully written, magnificently composed and, undeniably, a small masterpiece. It's an adventurous yarn that will keep you up at night. I highly recommend it as a gift, as a book to be read aloud, as something to be deliciously devoured.

Intriguing, original tale of classic moral: good vs evil

I am not usually a reader of fiction, usually prefering history and biographies, but I really enjoyed this unique story. The mix of worldly personalities juxtaposed by some fantastical characters made for interesting and enjoyable read. The main character, a young orphan boy who is missing a hand is given over to the custody of a mysterious man. As their intertwined fates unfold, the author leaves the reader wondering if this enigmatic guardian will ultimately prove to be good or bad -- or some very human mix of both.

As I said, this volume was a pleasure to read. The main story kept my attention sufficiently and was well-developed from beginning to end. However, the author included a couple of side stories which she introduces to the reader but doesn't then let develop sufficiently so as to be satisfying. Overall, I found it to be a commendable effort by the author which ended in a tale that is worth a read by the average leisure reader.

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IF ONLY I WERE 11 YEARS OLD AGAIN, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY ENJOY THIS TALE

Filled with close calls and death-defying escapes, Hannah Tinti's "The Good Thief" recalls the classic adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain -- but without Stevenson's vivid authenticity or Twain's satiric bite. At its best, "The Good Thief" is an homage to a meticulously plotted, lean-and-mean writing style that has gone out of vogue. At its worst, it seems like nothing more than a writing exercise or a twice-told tale amped up with lots of graphic violence for contemporary tastes. Younger readers will definitely get a kick out of this fast-paced story and its various twists and turns, which will be new to them. They'll love Tinti's well-imagined albeit generic world of sadistic henchmen, loveable grostesques and gothic settings. And they'll have fun imagining they're in the shoes of Ren, the young orphan of the title who embarks on a quest to find redemption. "He was never going to be respectable," Tinti writes of the rebellious and crafty thief. "And he was tired of trying to be good." Now if only I were 11 again, I could properly enjoy all this!

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