Did anyone else have trouble liking this book?

[Susan]

This book has gotten such high ratings, but I am having trouble. I am half way through the audio of this book, and have yet to find anything appealing or even interesting about it. The narrator is horrible, making the voices comic, but I don't think it is meant to be an amusing book. But for some reason I can't believe this to be serious.

[Monica]

Susan wrote: "This book has gotten such high ratings, but I am having trouble. I am half way through the audio of this book, and have yet to find anything appealing or even interesting about it. The narrator i..."

It started out really slow for me which means i will start to skim but i didnt do this and somewhere near the beginning of the middle of the book it got good and i found myself actually really loving this book, the storytelling and the character complex relationships. But i was sad about the ending. I never listen to an audio bc i read so many negative things about the narrators. it might just be u havent got to the good parts yet or it just not a book u will enjoy. Im sure u r not the only person who cant get into this book

[Susan]

I thank you for saying that. I have been persevering, and past the middle of the book I finally got interested in it. Perhaps it was not the narrator's fault, even though he did make Tom sound like Goofy.

[Ken]

The book horrifies. It copies the plot of Oliver Twist.

[Lauren]

It was a fun read for me. Nothing gained, nothing lost. Passed the time.

[Penny]

I quite enjoyed it, very much a fairy tale but as Lauren says was fun and passed the time!

[Claire]

I just kinda lost interest about halfway through. It wasn't terribly gripping, it didn't affect me or change how I look at the world in any way that was either subtle or grand, the characters weren't very engaging, and it wasn't even a mindless fun-read. It was just a sort of dreary slice-of-life kind of book.

Slice-of-life is a wonderful subgenre and can make for memorable reading. Just look at Bambi or Azumanga Daioh. Those are some of my all-time favorites, but what made those books memorable and wonderful were the fleshed-out, fully realized characters. The Good Thief didn't have characters like that, just characters who were weird and/or dark just for the sake of being weird and/or dark.

[Thomas]

I gave it one star:

It only takes a few points to make a novel worth reading... characters you care about, a well-described setting, and some kind of interesting conflict. Unfortunately, "The Good Thief" has none of these. The characters are poorly developed and I assume we are supposed to develop sympathy for them because of their missing hand or their "harelip" (an offensive term the author continually uses to describe one character). The setting is confused as it isn't clear when the story takes place. We are told that shotguns are common which would place it in the period after the Civil War but one character is described as being a member of the American Society of Dental Surgeons, an organization the ceased to exist in 1856. But another character is described as wearing a powdered wig which would place it even earlier. The idea that orphans who are not adopted are drafted into an army where they have little future seems even more absurd for anytime in 19th century New England outside of the Civil War. But the greatest defect is that nothing really happens. The characters wander around a poorly described New England and occasionally steal something.

There is a basis for a good story somewhere in the book. The idea of an orphan being adopted by a con-man, thief in order to help him steal is not a bad idea for a story. But this book simply fails to make anything out of the story. The writing simply lacks the excitement or even the descriptive language that could take this story somewhere. Perhaps I am not the target audience for this book but I found it a difficult struggle to get through and can not recommend it.

[Rachel]

I know I read it, but I remember nothing about it. It struck me as somewhat disappointing, as I'd bought a copy for a trip. I don't have it now, so I obviously didn't like it enough to keep it. :(

[SweetCheeses]

I actually loved it. I know a lot was stolen from Mark Twain and other authors, but I love orphan/adventure stories, and I think she did a good job creating it. I try not to pick this stuff apart too much. It was a fun read.