The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1) – Scott Lynch

    In this stunning debut, author Scott Lynch delivers the wonderfully thrilling tale of an audacious criminal and his band of confidence tricksters. Set in a fantastic city pulsing with the lives of decadent nobles and daring thieves, here is a story of adventure, loyalty, and survival that is one part "Robin Hood", one part Ocean's Eleven, and entirely enthralling... 
    An orphan's life is harsh — and often short — in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains — a man who is neither blind nor a priest.
    A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected "family" of orphans — a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.
    Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld's most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful — and more ambitious — than Locke has yet imagined. 
    Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi's most trusted men — and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr's underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game — or die trying...

THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA has been in my peripheral vision for a while, but I wouldn’t have actually picked up without Alyssa and Amy and our On the Same Page feature in which we read books together so I am SO thankful for that and that I had someone to read this book with! It’s a bit hefty, kicking off this epic adult fantasy series at over 700 pages so I was intimidated on the sheer size of it and taking on such large books by myself always seems like a daunting task. Really I had absolutely nothing to worry about because after I finished, I immediately wanted so much more.

THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA is set in the amazing fantasy world created by Scott Lynch, mainly taking place in the city of Camorr. The book ranges from what is “present day” in the book during Locke’s adult life and bouncing back to flashbacks during “interludes” which periodically give us glimpses into the pasts of Locke Lamora, his right hand man and best friend Jean Tannen, and even history of the city of Camorr, neighboring cities, and important characters that play a significant role in the plot. I loved the flashbacks and I LOVED getting more details about this new and exciting fantasy world as the book progressed because as I’ve come to learn, world building in fantasy is extremely important to me and I’m always hungry for more world building, all the time!

At 700+ pages, it’s hard to break the entire book down so what I will tell you is this: IT HAS EVERYTHING. A fantastic world, a rich history, SO SO much comedy, fighting, action, adventure, bromances (JEAN. I love Jean Tannen so much (male French Jean, not the female)), thievery, chases, escapes (oh wait, that sounded like The Princess Bride right there — okay I guess it doesn’t quite have true love in this book, but it’s set up for future books!) and I loved every second of it. I found myself feeling like it resembled a fantasy Ocean’s 11 with Locke Lamora as the ring leader. All of his life he’s been a master of thieving and trickery and growing up with the Gentleman Bastards, a small gang of thieves led by Father Chains, Locke refines his crew and his missions and becomes the most expert thief there is in all of Camorr.

The narration and language in this book is fantastic. There is swearing. A LOT of it. And I LOVED it. It just added to the book so much for me — it emphasized the terrible, made the funny funnier — I don’t know why but I absolutely loved the amount of swearing in the book. So many times I laughed out loud! But aside from the cursing, the general narration really is fantastic. I was always interested in the dialogue, the setting, and again, emphasizing how much I loved the interludes in between the present story line chapters even though sometimes it was excruciating to see an interlude RIGHT after some monumental mid-book cliffhanger happened! It just made me want to race through the book that much more.

If you love fantasy, if you love capers and thievery, and if you love comedy, PICK UP THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. I expected to enjoy it but had no idea how much I would fall in love with it. THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA was an easy five star book for me and I cannot wait to start book two.

“The View from Goodreads” is a new featured section in my reviews that I decided to incorporate! I tend to update my Goodreads status a LOT when I read — reactions, feelings, notes — so I thought it would be fun to share the sort of “reading process”! All status updates are spoiler-free (no specific plot points will be revealed) but will contain reactions to certain pages and/or characters!

Yeah, SEE? GO READ THIS. 

Locke Lamora // Character Obsessions: Stealing, plotting, friendships.
Locke Lamora was fantastic. God, I loved him. He was brilliant and so amazing at plotting, his brain totally made to be a thief. He was such a great main character and I loved his loyalty and dedication to his friends and crew.
Jean Tannen // Character Obsessions: Fighting, protecting his crew, the Gentleman Bastards.
Jean (male Jean, not female) was so incredibly awesome. Jean is Locke’s right-hand man and his best friend and the bromance in this book. I die. It was so amazing. I loved the friendship between Locke and Jean and how Jean always has Locke’s back. ALWAYS. I seriously still smile thinking back on it.

Kept Me Hooked On: Huge fantasy books. I read all of the currently released A Song of Ice and Fire last year and was hesitant about taking on a thick new series but this is totally amazing. 700+ pages read like nothing because it was just so amazing and so much fun! I can’t wait to read more of it. Already dying for it.
Left Me Wanting More: Romance? The set-up for the romance is there but book one was more about Locke, his history, and his epic job as well as epic friendships. I really didn’t miss the lack of romance in the book because the rest of it was so incredible. However, that was the one thing that was really “missing” and I put missing in quotes because I actually didn’t miss it but AM looking forward to it in book two!

Addiction Rating
BUY IT! READ IT!

This was soooooo good. So good. Buy this book and read it and love it. Please!

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(Click the cover to see my review!)