Book Review: Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

I waited months for my library hold on Little Thieves by Margaret Owen. I should have just given in and purchased it, because it was every bit as good as people said it was and it would have been perfect to read when I was snowed in last month.

I’m a sucker for a good fairy tale retelling, and Little Thieves is inspired by The Goose Girl. I feel like this is a story that gets reimagined a lot less than say, Beauty and the Beast, so it was a nice change. Our main character is Vanja Schmidt, a selfish and greedy maid who has assumed the identity of her former mistress, and has also taken up a life of crime as a jewel thief, robbing the nobles who invite her to parties in her guise as Princess Gisele.

Why I Loved This Book

It took me a bit to sit down and write this review because for the first few days after I read Little Thieves, I just wanted to do the Kermit arm flail.

Vanja is one of those characters who I just fell into hard love with. Yes, she’s selfish and greedy, but as the story unfolds, it becomes pretty clear why she’s learned to always look out for herself — because no one else has ever looked out for her. Vanja has suffered a lot of hardship and abuse in her life, and is using her stolen identity as a stepping stone to freedom and independence.

The side characters are pretty great, too. We get to know the actual Princess Gisele, and learn about her complicated relationship with her former maid. We have a comic relief/sidekick style character in the form of Ragne, a shape-shifting demigod tasked with keeping an eye on Vanja. And we have Emeric, the young detective who is trying to track down the thief who is targeting nobles’ jewelry boxes. Each is their own complicated character with their own motivations, relationships with each other, and goals.

All of these characters populate a well-paced, entertainingly narrated book that eventually comes together with a heist-style plot determined to thwart Gisele’s unworthy princely fiancé, who may turn out to be even worse than Gisele and Vanja thought.

Does It Pass The Copaganda Test?

I have to admit that after the past few years, I’m having a hard time with books that feature sympathetic characters who are cops, city guards, or similar archetypes. And while Emeric serves as an antagonist to Vanja for most of the book, you can also tell that he’s meant to be sympathetic, and eventually their goals align.

Emeric is not an amateur or freelance detective; he is an official junior officer working towards a lifelong calling fighting crime. Two things made this tolerable for me.

First of all, the “police” in general are not portrayed as a force for good. It’s not just because Vanja is a thief that we see the guards as the opposition; in fact, their general incompetence is what has allowed her criminal career to flourish. We also see that the local city guards, the Wulfhunden, are corrupt, running protection rackets on business owners among other things.

Emeric, however, is sworn to the Low Gods, and detectives with this holy calling have magical limitations that prevent them from using their divine powers for corrupt means. It’s still not a perfect system, though. After all, they mostly seem to handle high-profile, major crimes (like some sort of magical FBI I guess), leaving the common people subject to the whims of corrupt and/or inefficient local constabularies.

So I’d say Little Thieves is not copaganda, but the character of Emeric may still leave some readers feeling iffy.

Representation Matters

Little Thieves takes place in a “queernorm” setting. Multiple side characters are shown in same-sex marriages which are accepted and uncommented on. Much like the magical FBI, it’s not a perfect system. It’s still suggested that some royals and nobles care more about making sure their children are in a marriage that can produce heirs than a marriage in alignment with their orientation. There was also casual mention of trans people existing, although I don’t recall that any of the characters, even minor ones, were explicitly trans.

What was especially welcome for me was that both Vanja and her eventual love interest (no spoilers here!) are demisexual. I’m demi myself and I rarely see this in books, especially in YA! It was nice to watch a relationship evolve at a pace that, while still accelerated to fit the constraints of the book, felt more in line with my own experience. And I’m sure young demi readers will really love seeing themselves in Vanja and her LI, and being reassured that it’s normal and acceptable to need more time and connection with someone before you feel a spark.

While there are several romantic pairings in this story, they’re not the only important relationships. Friendship and family ties prove important. And there’s a lot going on in matters of trust, forgiveness, and learning to ask for/accept/rely on help. I love it when a book showcases a wide spectrum of relationship models, especially when it features strong female friendships. I feel like this is especially important for YA readers, who get fed a lot of “not like other girls” narratives and a lot of “marrying the first guy you met when you were 17” narratives (more of that in its own post someday, I think).

Who Will Enjoy This Book?

Little Thieves is perfect for anyone who enjoys smart fairy tale retellings. It is definitely a YA book, with teenage protagonists, but it doesn’t rely too heavily on YA tropes. I think it will have a lot of crossover appeal for adult readers like me.

For younger readers, such as those in Middle Grade who read well above their grade level, there are some heavy subjects at play here, including child abuse (including a whipping), animal death (mostly off-page), and child abandonment/endangerment. And while nothing explicit happens on-page, it is an open secret that Gisele’s terrible fiancé harasses and rapes female servants, and in fact Vanja narrowly escaped his intentions. I’d recommend that any parents consider reading this one before handing it over to your kids, to determine if any of the mature content would be too much for them, or if you might need to discuss it with them first.

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