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May 22, 2020librarianjessica rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
There are many good things about The Gilded Wolves. It's brimming with diversity, snark, lush writing, and lightheartedness. But for all it does well, it ended up being a "meh" book to me, for a few reasons. This book follows a band of ragtag thieves in an alternate history Paris where magic exists in the form of Forging. There are four major magical political Houses, and only certain people have access to Forging magic, which comes in different varieties, such as mind or matter manipulation. Séverin, Laila, Tristan, Zofia, and Enrique have a long history of acquisitions - thievery and the like - and they find themselves caught up in a search for a particular artifact called the Horus Eye in 1889. Their search involves puzzles, mathematics, magic, and all the fun that a heist brings, with a band of diverse characters who care about each other in such interesting ways. What gets me about this one is that I felt like I couldn't follow the story, which honestly never happens to me. Something would be happening and I'd flip the page and go ??? Did I miss something? Maybe this is partly me (I was in the middle of my library practicum when I started this book, so my brain wasn't at 100% capacity) but I also think it's the writing. As wonderful as Roshani's detail is, and as lush as her descriptions can be, I felt like she didn't provide enough detail for me to sink my teeth into when it came down to the actual scenes themselves. It seemed to me that there were gaps in between something happening and the reaction the characters had, or they'd react to something that I didn't recall happening. This sounds weird, but it's really how it felt; like there were some things happening off-page that then made everything over-complicated and hard to follow. And with the mythology at play here, I also felt like I needed more. I needed to know more about the magic system and how it worked and how it could be accessed, and by whom. Sometimes something would happen and I'd go "huh" and then move on, but I don't like questioning those basic, foundational questions about the world I'm in. It was a lot of adjustment to make right from the get-go and not enough world-building for my liking. However, with that said, I did enjoy the ride. The characters are the heart of this story and I absolutely loved them. The representation of such a multitude of cultures and abilities was just so fulfilling. This is the kind of fantasy novel we need more of in this area, where characters come from everywhere and where that history is woven into their stories in such fascinating ways. So, take the good with the bad with this one, I suppose. It's a fun romp, but it broke down for me when I really considered the plot. The characters are wonderful, but the plot left me scratching my head and wondering if I'd missed something.