“She’d pushed it down, crushed it beneath the weight of stubborn determination, but still it haunted her at night, when such terrors shamble from their dens to torment innocent insomniacs.”
― Ari Marmell, Thief’s Covenant
This book is the first in a series called Widdershin’s Adventures written by Ari Marmell and published by Pyr, 2012. It is a YA fantasy with a lot of adventure in it. It is a series in its truest form as the plot is followed up in the second book and you will need to have read the first one to understand the second book.
As a young adult book, it is not targeted towards adults like me which will be obvious for those reading the book with many ridiculous dialogs that is supposed to be funny, cocky or sarcastic but is very typical of a teenager trying to act cool and failing miserably. The bad dialog along with the writer’s undying love to describe everything, from random people’s clothes and every detail of a room, it made for a dull experience according to me. Which surprised me as people had suggested this book describing it as fast-paced filled with adventure. It did hit a faster pace in the middle of the book and became bearable but at that time I had already considered stop listening to the audiobook and I did not want to continue the series.
So, what is it about? It follows the young girl called Widdershin, among other mentioned names, who was a street orphan, who became a noble to then become a thief again. She met encountered a long-forgotten got and became a worshipper. During one of the meetings, all the other worshippers got massacred leaving her the lone survivor and the gods only worshipper which meant that she was stuck with him in her head as she became a thief to… Survive? It isn’t clear why she became a thief as she had a friend who owned a bar so she could have worked there among other things. In fact, the book doesn’t really mention how she became such a good thief anyway and most of the time I think its because of the god who keeps helping her.
The main character seems rash, never serious and listens to no one. But overall it seems more like the teenager from an adult’s view. The people around the main character keep giving her good advice that is just ignored which left me confused as to why no one seems to be able to catch this girl. It’s like Widdershin is amazing at what she does because everyone else is just incompetent. This is only strengthened by the writer’s tendency to tell us that everyone else is great at what they do. For example, there is a constable who tries to catch her in the story. He is known to be an outstanding person feared by the criminal world. But they never show that in the story and he is constantly made a fool of by Widdershin which made me think that he was just incompetent.
That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t characters that was well written. The tavern owner, Genevieve, was a good mother figure but she was barely in the story and only had one real purpose which I cannot disclose without giving away to much but let’s say that she was there for us to like her.
My favorite character was a fellow thief Lambert who was charming, funny and with a bit of mystery to him. Though , he also wasn’t much in the book but I would think that he will have a bigger role in future books and this one was meant to set up his character.
The god Olgun, would have been the most interesting character but he has some weird dialog along with Widdershin which makes him look both childish and mature. Like he has two personalities. They do give an explanation to this later on which actually surprised me but the conclusion to that explanation was that Olgun doesn’t seem to have a personality of his own so I wasn’t that pleased with it. Though, it will be interesting to see what the writer would do with the character further into the story.
The book kept shifting to past and presence which made the story confusing. There were many times I was lost for a minute before catching up with where we are and why we are there. There was also a problem with the tone, in one scene you have a bloody massacre with maiming bodies and crying. In the next, you have Widdershin chirping like a chicken to annoy some brutish guy. I cannot determine if it is a darker story or a light adventure which frankly left me a bit cold to the story.
Does that mean that it was completely bad? Not really, it has its good moments and is most likely an enjoyable read for younger people along with those who are looking for some fun adventure without analyzing the book too much.
I would give it around 4 out of 10 if I were to rate it but I would consider putting it closer to a 5 if I were to look at it more neutrally. It would be hard to recommend this one though as I don’t know to whom I would recommend it. Adults? there are some darker elements but they seem to be there more for shock value. Teenager? Well, there are some lighter, adventure elements that I can see younger audiences enjoying but all those long descriptions to slow down the pace. It all comes down to if you are able to buy the main character being as cool as the writer wants you to believe. I did not, did you?
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