I really enjoyed this book while listening to it, but I already know that I’m going to forget every part of it within the next week. That’s not to say it’s a forgettable book for everyone, it just will be for me. The romances were okay (a little underdeveloped), the plot was fun, and the story was good.

This took me a while to get into but once I was in, I was hooked. I find that the characters stuck with me. The character development was better than the plot for me!

Retelling of The Goose Girl, this novel was beautifully written with fantastic world and character building. I found it difficult to put down to accomplish every day tasks. I am looking forward to Painted Devils.

This was a really fun fantasy story. It was a bit darker than I was expecting, but I really liked that about this story.

Owen does not disappoint with another charming story set in a fairytale-eque world. Her magic system is consistent, and it was fascinating to delve deeper into the world of her previous books. The story itself is interesting with a powerful and cunning female lead who is delightfully morally grey. If you enjoyed her other works you are guaranteed to enjoy this one as well.

I really enjoyed this book. I am a huge YA fan, but straight fantasy isn't generally my favorite genre. This book is a great mix of fantasy and folklore and I love that it had Germanic roots - it gave it a more unique vibe.

Vanja is the adopted daughter of Fortune and Death, abandoned by her birth family for being bad luck. When's she's too old to remain with her mothers, she joins a royal family as the maid to their daughter Gisele, who is betrothed to an evil prince. She finds herself stuck between her adopted mothers’ impossible ultimatum - choose one of them to serve for her entire life - and the royal family’s cruel treatment. Ultimately, she takes her fate into her own hands, but becoming a thief and stealing enough money to flee for good. However, she crosses one too many low gods and finds herself cursed. Now she has to face the consequences of her decision to face her future alone - or just maybe, she’ll decide to let someone love her.

Vanja is a fantastic character. She’s scrappy and resourceful, smart and sarcastic. She’s got a prickly exterior but with a soft center, carved from years of pain and want. Her transformation as she struggles to connect with those around her is such an important part of this story and the author portrays it so well - Vanja must literally learn to trust or she’ll physically turn to gemstones and die.

I really appreciated that platonic love is just as important as romantic love to the story. I l enjoyed the theme of found family as Vanja gets closer to those around her. And I totally dug that Vanja’s love interest falls for her brains, wit, and heart - not her looks.

Bonus points for how casually and naturally same-sex relationships are treated and non-binary characters are introduced. And the Bechdel test? Passes with flying colors.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, MacMillan, and the author for access to this title in exchange for my honest review.

Before we get started I just want to say this review is a mess. I'm hurrying to type this while this book is fresh in my mind. I plan to come back to this review to rewrite it soon or after a give it a reread.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., and the author, Margaret Owen, and theFierceReads' team for sending an e-arc copy of this book to read and review.

TW + CW: abuse, violence, sexual assault, abandonment/neglect

LITTLE THIEVES by MARGARET OWEN is the first book in a young adult fantasy series that retells the fairy tale, The Goose Girl. LITTLE THIEVES follows Vanja Schmidt, a maidservant that takes the opportunity to switch lives with a princess. As princess, she's charming everyone in the castle while sneaking a few of the riches for herself. but when she crosses the wrong god, she is cursed. This curse forces her to make up for everything she has done and taken or she will be turned into the same jewels she has stolen.

Somebody needs to tell me to stop procrastinating on my ARCs and physical TBR because here I am, once again, wowed by how much I enjoyed a book that I kept putting off. Like if I read this when I got it, I could have been raving about this with everyone else. I was missing out! With that being said, I will say that I found myself easily getting distracted which typically happens when I'm feeling bored or like a scene or conversation is dragged out. However, Margaret Owen does well with bringing in something new to the story that would draw me back in.

For the retelling lovers, I recommend that you check this book out because this is amazing! I admit that I am not familiar with the original Goose Girl story but I am did not find it necessary to know while reading. I'm now intrigued to devour anything related to Goose Girl and dive into other fairy tales that may not be as well known. I am still undecided about what to rate this book (I am between a 3.75 and 4) because I think this could have had a little bit more oomph, something that would have tipped me close to a higher rating. This also could be an issue of this book being a part of a series. Some books need a little bit more and that 'more' doesn't come in until a later installment in the series. The next book comes out next year so I'm excited to see what's to come. I have heard they Margaret's second books in series tend to be explosive and emotional if you're attached to the characters. I think this could be an exciting introduction to an author I may come to love and read annually.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holy publishing for this digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Vanja is a scullery maid living a double life disguising herself as her mistress, a princess, with the aid of magical pearls. Utilizing her disguise to make money in order to run away and know true freedom, Vanja’ is in the home stretch when she is cursed by a minor god, given two weeks to live.

You would think having Death and Fortune as he godmothers would make things easier, but they are part of the reason she wants to escape. With her “betrothed” on the way home and a magical detective on her trail Vanja will need a miracle to gain her freedom and make it out alive.

Based on Grimm’s Goose Girl, Little Thieves is a great read that kept me up all night waiting to see Vanja’s fate.

I really appreciate this unique story! I have never heard of the original but thoroughly enjoyed this retelling.

Such a beautiful cover, for a beautiful story. The world building, and the characters were phenomenal. I felt like I was living amongst the Pages. YA has been a struggle for me lately. But this book was exactly what I needed.

This book had me hooked from the beginning! I am not familiar with "The Goose Girl", but that didn't hinder my experience at all. The story was super engaging and the characters were all very flushed out. I was a little confused about the curse but as the story went on, it made more sense. I'm excited for the sequel!

Yet another book that I'm furious with myself for taking so long to read. Vanja is an absolutely chaotic, horrible girl, and I love her dearly. I absolutely adore books like this with an expansive pantheon of gods, both big and small, that become personified in many ways. I love the dark magic. I absolutely live and breathe the romantic relationships here (side note, the way the author was trans-inclusive when it came to a character being a lesbian? exquisite, And not fucking hard, either. Everyone should do this,) The demi rep? I myself am not demi, but it just felt so great to see a story where the characters felt empowered to draw boundaries for themselves based on the sexualities. I also love the casual queerness in a historical-feeling setting, and I long for a day when casual queerness doesn't surprise me and is just the norm. I am already salivating for the follow up to this story, can you tell?

Read full review at our blog - link provided. We'd like to thank the publisher for giving us a copy in exchange for a review!

This was a fun read. The story was original. I loved the attitude of the main character and the concept.

I love a good villain. I love even more where the story is from the villain's POV and it's not about the villain being redeemed. I love Owen's writing style and truly adored her duology, so it was a no brainer for me to be desperate for this book. I highly recommend everyone pick up this book. Also ,the cover art is stunning.

Little Thieves is a retelling of ‘the goose girl,’ a tale I haven’t really heard of before. Given the opportunity to read an ARC of this story, I went into it somewhat blind to what I would be walking into. Despite the fact that I was completely unfamiliar with the source material, I appreciated that it was a completely different story than what is constantly retold. I enjoyed the atmosphere the book created, but the story did fall a bit flat for me as I wasn’t able to really get hooked on it.

I got stuck mid-way through the book, unable to really get the motivation to continue. However, the characters were very compelling and I do appreciate the world building and the different kinds of aesthetics used throughout the book - woodsy, dark fairytale vibes. I just felt as if the book was very long and a bit slow throughout some parts and it could have been a bit shorter to help promote the movement of the plot. The plot isn’t something with a lot of depth, making it a simple read, which has it’s good and bad points.

I would definitely recommend this book to others who are looking for a story that hasn’t really been done much before – it’s something that I think was a refreshing read, despite the fact that it did take me a bit to get through and I had to read in chunks. It was just a fresh retelling that’s different than a lot of stories. If you’re a fantasy lover, I would recommend to put this on your TBR!

I am a huge fan of retellings, but I was at a slight disadvantage with this book because I was not familiar with the ‘Goose Girl’ story this book was based on. This was a good read and a fairly entertaining story, but definitely not my favorite read. The pacing felt too slow for me at times and because of that it made the story feel very long and drawn out. I enjoyed the dark atmosphere and Vanja was an intriguing anti-hero character. Overall I really wanted to love this book, but the pacing of it made it a little too hard to get through at times. Definitely want to re-read as an audiobook at some point to see if that changes the pacing for me!

Part fairy tale retelling, part heist, Little Thieves is lush and atmospheric. The the main characters are a rag-tag group of murder children who really don't know what they're doing in the slightest but they manage to get themselves into a whole lot of trouble along the way. The banter is sharp and delightful and the character relationships are well crafted.

DID NOT DISAPPOINT. Such a well fleshed out world, understandable religious system, perfectly simple representation that wasn't gaudy or obtuse, chef's kiss to the whole thing! Not only was the writing gorgeous and the world building unmatched but the characters were all so fleshed out and wonderful! Often times characterization suffers for world building or vice versa but Owens once again swoops in to prove that neither need suffer. Delightful!

Margaret Owen is quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me. I loved The Merciful Crow duology and I loved her latest release, Little Thieves. Little Thieves tells the story of Vanja Schmidt, who learns the hard way that some things should not be stolen.

There are many reasons why Little Thieves is a great story. Here’s 5:

1. Morally-grey MC - I love reading stories about villains. Villains are often complex characters and Vanja is no exception. Throughout the novel, she struggles between fulfilling her own self-interests and doing what is right.
2. Diverse representation - Little Thieves is set in an LGBTQ+ inclusive world. You can expect to read about an F/M relationship between a demisexual MC and a demisexual love interest and an F/F relationship between side characters.
3. Fairytale retelling - Owen places her own creative spin on "The Goose Girl." I am not too familiar with "The Goose Girl," but I enjoyed reading a book that was based on a lesser-known fairy tale.
4. The exploration of trauma - Lately, I have been reading more books that explore how trauma impacts a person and as such, I loved that Owen did not overlook the impact of Vanja's childhood on her personality. Vanja has not had an easy life and her actions are a result of those events.
5. Heists - Vanja is a thief, so you can expect many heists in Little Thieves. If you loved Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology, then you will enjoy reading about Vanja and her friends' adventures.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own. I cannot wait to read how Vanja’s story continues in Painted Devils!