The Lies of Locke Lamora
Ratings904
Average rating4.3
I loved this book! I need to get the rest to see how Locke???s story continues.
never have I laughed so much! the trouble Locke get into and his clever wit to talk his way out.
fucking LOVED it
This is a book about revenge, thieves and heists. Needless to say, it has a lot of violence and foul language. I really loved the characters and their adventures were great fun. Overall it was too crude and too violent for my liking.
The novel has 2 timelines: a past one, fast, entertaining and witty, a 4/5. And a present one that tries too hard to be entertaining and witty and is just boring and overburdened with uninteresting, unoriginal worldbuilding, yet not enough characters' building. And definitely not believable at all in its schemes. A 2/5 at most. The average would be 3, but i'll lower it further not because of the author, but of the many reviews pretending this is another “Name of the Wind”. No, not even nearly, and that comparison set my expectations too high and the dissappointment was sharper. I will not read the rest of the trilogy, though I already got them.
Holy Macaroni! What a story. Stories. These chapters are so fluid and filled to the brim with movement and plot. Great read!
Life is too short to read bad books. Well... The Lies of Locke Lamora isn't a bad book. In fact, it is well beloved by many readers, nominated by many as one of the best Fantasy books ever written, and Gentleman Bastards are mentioned as one of the best Fantasy series, even when it's not even finished. I think there's three books in the series of seven, or something like that. I cannot correctly judge the writing or language or anything like that, all I can say if I like it or not.And I don't like this.I can't stand the hopping around the timeline. It's the same with [b:Borgmästaren 43662568 Borgmästaren Tina Westerlund https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548086274l/43662568.SY75.jpg 67932900]. I find it irritating, that we read a couple of pages with Locke being 5, a couple of pages where he's like 25 or something, then he's like 10, and so on and so forth, hop hop hop... in many cases the jump isn't even relevant to the story. In some places it gives a bit more information to the situation, but often it's just a cliffhanger. I hate that. Also, I don't care about the heist story. I couldn't care less whether they succeed or if they are very clever or not. I have read 1/4 of the story (and this is over 700 pages book), so I assume that's what this story is. I just can't be bothered. I am not interested in these characters. They refer to this girl every now and then, and I jawn. I don't care about his romance. I don't care about their friendship, how ever amazing it is. I find the world building wonderful, the underground city, the graveyard situation, all that, absolutely amazing. I love Chains. But - Yawn. No.
Read this book for the first time and I am completely enamored with it. The writing is difficult to follow at first but once you get used to the style you realize the author is basically answering your questions when or before you have them with the flashbacks. I love the amazing plot, the lovable characters, and the entire world. I hope the next two books answer some of the question about the Eldren, Elderglass, and the Bondsmagi.
My only real critique is that the main climax' (plural) don't hit as hard as i wanted. The writing style is so fluid it feels like you can read right past them without being impacted at all. Don't get me wrong, i loved them was devastated by them when i was supposed to be, but i feel like the author could have made his points in the cliffhanger format most readers are used to to make the climax' more impactful.
TL;DR
Plot: 8/10
Style: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Audiobook: 9/10
“I only steal because my dear old family needs the money to live!”Locke Lamora made this proclamation with his wine glass held high; he and the other Gentleman Bastards were seated at the old witchwood table. . . . The others began to jeer.“Liar!” they chorused“I only steal because this wicked world won't let me work an honest trade!” Calo cried, hoisting his own glass.“LIAR!”“I only steal,” said Jean, “because I've temporarily fallen in with bad company.”“LIAR!”At last the ritual came to Bug; the boy raised his glass a bit shakily and yelled, “I only steal because it's heaps of fucking fun!”“BASTARD!”
“I'm not going to kill you,” said Locke. “I'm going to play a little game I like to call ‘Scream in pain until you answer my fucking questions.'”
“We're a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We don't believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more.”
This is book was sooo good. The first couple of chapters were a bit confusing, as far as getting into the world. However the story picked up quickly and once it did i was hooked.
Didn't finish, ended up reading the summary a couple years later. It was OK. I appreciate the grounded, antihero, sleuthing style of fantasy, but I didn't think the book was particularly great either. Too long, too many boring parts.
So, let me get one thing clear, many people will absolutely love this book. The characters are interesting, the dialogue was fun, and the world-building had so many details it seemed real.
So, what's the problem? A personal preference, really. I rarely like flashbacks, and on average every other chapter of this book was a flashback. I sometimes like brief glances into the past, but it is always the main plot that keeps me going. A few times the flashbacks broke the feel of the story for me. Someone's life was at risk, and it was like someone stopped to think “remember when....” and killed the anticipation for me.
I think it was a great book for someone out there, but not for me.
PROS:
-World building
-Interesting characters
-Fun dialogue
-Good story
-Great story of friendship bonds
-No random romance plots
CONS
-Flashbacks. So many flashbacks.
-The author really seems to dislike sharks..?
Loved it. So many twists and turns, genuinely funny moments. Good world building and characters, too
I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice roller coaster ride from beginning to end and I really enjoyed the world building. I'm very interested in continuing to read the adventures of the Gentleman Bastards.
Locke ! Freaking ! Lamora ! And Jean ! Tannen ! Are my theiving sons that stole my heart from page 1!!
I will protect those two bros with my life 1000%
This is a difficult one to review. The things I liked were in the four-star range, whereas the things I didn't like so much weren't actively negative, but rather just kind of blah.
What I liked:
- An interesting fantasy world that assertively rejects the hobbits-and-elves framework. This goes for more realism - many of the elements could have taken place in a non-magical Renaissance Venice. But this version of Venice is built on the remnants of a technologically advanced, long-vanished civilization, and uses alchemy as its technological driver the way steampunk uses Victorian brass-and-steam.
- An intriguing underworld society that has its own government and even its own secret priesthood.
- A likable band of rogues pulling off heists and confidence games.
- A conflict that mines revenge as a motivator (eventually)
- Some textured and interesting supporting characters (eventually)
- A lot of the themes do come together by the end of the book, in a pretty satisfying way
What I didn't like:
- Most of all, this is SLOW to start. You have to get through half of the book before the main conflict emerges at all. A neat setting and charming characters pulling off capers only maintains interest for so long, unless an actual plot is in evidence. And when the book is 500+ pages, waiting till the halfway point to engage the main narrative is particularly problematic.
- Coming a close second, Locke and his band of merry men are so talented and well-funded that they basically start the story with Story-Breaker Power, which then requires the villain to be nigh-omnipotent to pose a threat, which for me makes things kind of boring. It means either the bad guy will win (usually not allowed, and if allowed, rather a downer), or the good guys will have preposterously good luck to overcome him.
This is a shame, because the backstory does give younger Locke some flaws that could have fueled a more believable challenge for him.
Upshot:
Check this out if world-building is your jam, and you don't mind a leisurely interval where the author introduces background information and you get to know the main characters.
Overall, I think I might check out the next book, because now that the setting and characters are established, it could hook me earlier. And the setting is truly fascinating, plus the first story leaves some characters set up in a really intriguing way for further adventures!
It took me awhile to get into this, as fantasy books usually do for me, but once The Grey King showed up in the flesh the story really started to move. I'm not sure that I liked it enough to read the next book, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading this one that's been sitting on my shelf for years!
I finally got around to reading this book after seeing it floating around the blog-sphere and hearing the comparisons with Six of Crows. I had a bumpy start with the book and it isn't one I wanted to read in one sitting, but I did very much enjoy it.
This book is quite amazingly told. There is foreshadowing and little events that happen throughout the book which affect the rest of the novel. I am sure I missed some of the details, making me want to read through the book once again, even though I finished it just hours ago. This writing is so very well done.
The book is a bit slow paced, with the big conflict and problem of the story not revealing itself until halfway in. This may be a problem for some readers. I almost thought about putting the book down, but knowing how highly rated and recommended as well as the joy I got from reading about Locke's past, kept me going. Every chapter felt so packed full of information, it felt dense. After reading a chapter or two, I would be ready for a break. I will say that the chapters being broke up further into parts, did help the novel flow and not feel as dense to me. The parts make the chapters feel shorter, which may help those readers preferring short chapters.
The characters are easily distinguished from one another, unless they aren't supposed to, such as the twins. The story was beautifully done and I loved how every other chapter focused on Locke or the other thieves' past which then would provide the lesson or feel for what is to come. Saying this, I am disappointed that none of the main characters was female, even though one of the Gentlemen Bastards is female. She is only mentioned, never actually in the book which is frustrating because there are so many strong and amazing women characters in the book and even the section pointing out that women should not be underestimated.
The audiobook is fantastic. The narrator has different voices for the cast of characters which helps keep them separate. He also does inflections and raises or lowers his voice according to the book, making the reader feel engaged with the book. I absolutely loved listening to the parts I did, but the long length kept me from listening to the book exclusively.
I'm not dying to get my hands on the second novel, but I will get around to reading it eventually.
This is a good book, but let me put a couple warnings out there. This book is very dark and can be pretty gruesome (gory) and explicit in places. There is also a lot of profanity, in the prologue especially. I am used to the made up cuss words in a lot of fantasy, so this was a little jarring. I understand that this sets the mood for the world, but I just wanted to let others know that if this were a movie, it would be rated R.
I had trouble getting into this book. It is split into 4 parts and goes back and forth in time with “interludes” throughout the book, those are little snippets of what happened with Locke and his crew as they grew up, or sometimes events that are outside of the main plot. I enjoyed the interludes, especially the parts about Locke and his friends growing up. What I had trouble with was “Part I's” tendency to go back and forth between what Locke et al. were doing in the present and what they were doing earlier to get ready for their undertakings. It was like one of those retrospective episodes of Bones or NCIS. It completely broke the flow, and it took my brain a minute to catch up. It took me forever to get through that part, and I was afraid that it would continue in the same vein. Thankfully after the first part ended, the back and forth calms down and you really get the meat of the story.
For me, once the story picked up, it was very good. It keeps you on edge and wanting to know how/if the gang is going to get out of situation.
Also in regards to the prologue, was anyone else picturing Fagin every time the Theifmaker spoke?
Just me?
This book was absolutely incredible and terrible and fantastic and I'm not entirely over it yet. Probably one of he better books I've read in my lifetime. The language was a lot more crude by a long shot than I typically read, and that is my only point of contention. I generally guess endings and story lines for most books. This book was the most unpredictable book I've ever read and to me that is high praise. Every time I thought something was definitely going to go a certain way, it didn't. So glad I read this one.
A rumbustious and flamboyant adventure, full of action and intrigue. Excellent; bring on part two!
I liked this book, it surely had its exciting moments. Nevertheless, I felt it was too slow to build up the emotion and connection to the story. I struggled to maintain my interest during the first half of the book at least (it felt like years), although it quickly grew during the final chapters. I guess I was expecting too much of it reading all the 5 star reviews? I certainly enjoyed the wit of Locke and his friends during the story, but I just could't get the same sense of anticipation as I have felt with other characters in fantasy novels.