Aces Wild: A Heist

This was a ton of fun, and I love the variety of aro/ace spectrum representation here. I think the backstory about them meeting on a Star Wars message board and learning together that there was a word for asexuality and creating their own spinoff Discord is something that will really resonate with teens and I love that. I will say that this is pitched as “Six of Crows in Las Vegas” and like...sorryyyy but this doesn't quite live up to that, both because Six of Crows has such well-developed characters and also because Bardugo's heist is a few notches more elaborate than this one. Here the characters are a little flatter overall and the plot is a little sweatier. But like, it was a fun read and I think a lot of teens will love this and feel seen by it.

It's not really a heist story, but it's cute. I liked the ace representation and the friendship moments, and I appreciated that Jack concludes “my family is pretty messed up and not close and we need to do better” rather than staying stuck on his mom should be free because wealthy and other people are worse. 

I got this from NetGalley a while back because everyone was talking about it and I was having FOMO. The synopsis sounded intriguing enough but I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. Everyone I saw talk about it was raving about it. I went in excited but also scared because of the hype but I am so glad I finally read it because I loved it so much. The hype is definitely deserved. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Peachtree Teen for providing me with an eCopy in exchange for my honest review. 

I ended up buddy reading this with dbs_guide_to_the_galaxy we had planned to read 3 chapters a day and I managed to stick to that until I got closer to the end and I just couldn't make myself put it down anymore. 

Ok so I was immediately sucked into this story. I loved that it's a book about asexual characters. I'm pretty sure this is my first book with asexual characters in it and I will admit that while the term isn't new to me I am still learning about what it means. This book was somewhat informative for a newbie like me but don't go into it expecting a full lesson in asexuality. I feel like this representation was done really well. We also get other representation like a deaf character but this could have been handled better. 

This is described as a heist book but I would say it's heist light. They do attempt a heist but these are teenagers that are in way over their heads so what can they really do. Don't go in expecting a heist the likes of Six of Crows. I loved the friendship dynamic and got so many laughs out of their banter. I especially loved the relationship between Jack and Remy. They are both Ace but over the course of the book they both come to terms with having a crush on each other which this book makes a point to say that there's an Ace spectrum and every Ace person is going to be different. This isn't a romance but you can't deny their connection from the very beginning. 

Everything about this book worked for me. I loved it so much and I will for sure be looking into whatever else this author has written or will write.