The Thief is so different than the other books. It's a children's book and very much a children's adventure story (the political stuff is there but definitely backburnered) with this extra mythological twist, and then the rest of the books are All Politics All the Time, so much loyalty and intensity, etc. etc., just a really different feeling. I love The Thief for what it is, but it didn't stab me to the heart like some of the other books in the series.
I suspect the twist in The Thief works better for children, because as a child I never saw it coming. Maybe if someone had warned me there was a twist, I might have guessed? (I also suspect it was easier to go in utterly unspoiled in 1999 or whenever I read it, as I was basically not online at all.)
By the end of King of Attolia I was totally sold on Gen/Irene! Which genuinely stunned me, because I had SUCH mixed feelings about it in Queen of Attolia.
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I suspect the twist in The Thief works better for children, because as a child I never saw it coming. Maybe if someone had warned me there was a twist, I might have guessed? (I also suspect it was easier to go in utterly unspoiled in 1999 or whenever I read it, as I was basically not online at all.)
By the end of King of Attolia I was totally sold on Gen/Irene! Which genuinely stunned me, because I had SUCH mixed feelings about it in Queen of Attolia.