I went into this book with high expectations because it was recommended to me by more than one friend, two of whom have the same tastes as me when it comes to books. 

The first part introduced the main character and his friends, the kind of job they did and how they did it. And you have no idea how funny they are until you read it. A bunch of boys (and a girl but she doesn’t appear in this book) with their own history come together to commit thievery and mischief for the sake of it. The group is composed of Locke, the mastermind behind all their schemes, Jean, the nicest of the group that takes care of everyone and looks the most harmless until provoked, Calo and Galdo, twins and jacks of all trades and finally Bug, the new recruit, the youngest and the one that is teased the most by his older brothers. They work well together, complementing each other perfectly. So it’s not an exaggeration when I say that their interactions carried the plot in the first part. They teased each other a lot, pranked each other but you could still feel how deeply they cared for each other. Such strong brotherly love and god knows how much I love well done found-family tropes. *cries*

Three of them die later in the cruellest way. And when I tried to skim through the book for the sake of my review I couldn’t help but stop at the scenes of their interactions because that’s how much I miss them

And it’s a good thing the characters were entertaining enough to keep me going because plot wise, the first part was quite lacking. Sure they had an ongoing game with a family of nobles but it was too easy for them. They had little to no struggle since for them it was just routine. While some shady things started happening around them, threatening to ruin the fragile balance on which lied the stability of their country, Locke and his friends are not affected by it until we’re halfway in the book. And that’s when the pace picks up and things start to get really interesting. What’s more, some details mentioned in the first half that you thought were insignificant play a big role, resulting in crazy plot twists that blow your mind. 

If there's anything to complain about, it would be the descriptions and I complained about them a lot, ngl. Scott Lynch's descriptions are long, way too long sometimes for things that actually don't seem to matter that much. I'm talking mainly about landscapes that we've already seen in the beginning, but that he describes again with another set of words. It sounds like I don't like descriptions which is not entirely true because I would have loved to have them in one of the final battles that was cut a bit too short in my opinion, especially when said fight happened between two most renowned parties for their skills. The second was fight was crazy and thankfully well described that i could imagine their every movement in my head and play a little epic movie.

Another of my pet-peeve would be the author's repetitive use of "men and women" throughout the entire book when describe jobs. I wished he sometimes used a gender neutral term because the excessive parroting of men and women made me think at some point that the author was trying too hard make it seem like the universe he's written considered the two gender as equal... which I don't mind, really. But one or two mentions at the start are enough. But yeah, as my friend said, I tend to nitpick things a bit too much. 

Overall, despite being a bit too long, it was definitely a fun read with very loveable characters. A book I'll surely reread in the far future and one that I'll definitely recommend to everyone who asks.