Medici Heist

A teen planning a heist... what could go wrong?

Well the plot was decent. I found the storyline quite interesting. The characters though... They were a bit one dimensional. I also wonder if teens would be interested. It didn't feel YA to me but what do I know, I'm old!

The audio was decent, it was a bit slow in spots but the end was really well worth it for me.

I think had the characters been a bit more developed, it would have been sooo much better.

3.5 stars

As soon as I heard about this book - a historical based heist novel - I was like ‘yes, please'. So big thanks to Net Galley and the publisher (Feiwel & Friends) for the chance to read this ARC.

This book is so much fun! It's a fun, fast paced read with such enjoyable characters. I love the way things just keep going, it's not a peril-filled book, but it is fast-paced. To be honest, it's one of the few books I've read this year that I was fully confident reading just before bed because I trusted the author very quickly to not fill the book with unpleasantness.

The heist story is fun and I definitely feel some Leverage in it. (Which is all for the good for me as I love that show.) Things don't go smoothly, of course, but our mastermind Rosa is well up to the task.

For as much as I love the historical - which it plays super fast and loose with - heist aspects of this book, I am a character reader and that's were so much of my love for this book goes.

The characters each have their own personalities and they play off of each other wonderfully - and I adore the way you could tell they obviously like each other. A lot of times when I read ensemble cast books, even the ones that are supposedly all about the ‘friendship' or ‘found family' vibe, I don't get a real feel that there is a tight knit group.

In this book, though, right away, they like each other and you can tell. There's no pettiness, no backstabbing, maybe some needling and arguing, because friends don't let friends do stupid things. (And friends always know where to poke to hurt the most.)

Because this is an ensemble, I was very pleased - and somewhat shocked - to find out that everyone has a story. I'm not used to the level of fairness that this book has with the plot. Each of our narrators has something else going on, has things that tie into the heist plot. And you get to find out a lot about them and their pasts and I just really appreciate the fact that this isn't an ‘ensemble' with one or two obviously main characters, two secondary characters and one or two people that are always forgotten and you pretty much don't know why the author even created them. Everyone has a story and everyone is important to the heist.

I'm honestly super glad I requested this book from Net Galley because the lower Goodreads reviews - and a lot of them talking about how lacking the characters are - would have probably caused me to give the book a pass. And the fact is, yes, the book isn't a deep, thoughtful, navel-gaze-y, what is the meaning of the world type book. (I don't like those type of books, anyway.) But what it is is fun with a cast of characters that I truly loved spending time with and a snappy story and writing style that does bear out the authors screenplay roots.

(And, honestly, I would LOVE to see this as a movie. That would be so awesome!)