Thief of Lies Review: Gia

Book: Thief of Lies
Author: Brenda Drake
Series: Library Jumpers #1
Genre: YA fantasy
Source: Physical Copy
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Pages: 400
Release: January 5th 2015

Goodreads

Gia Kearns would rather fight with boys than kiss them. That is, until Arik, a leather clad hottie in the Boston Athenaeum, suddenly disappears. While examining the book of world libraries he abandoned, Gia unwittingly speaks the key that sucks her and her friends into a photograph and transports them into a Paris library, where Arik and his Sentinels—magical knights charged with protecting humans from the creatures traveling across the gateway books—rescue them from a demonic hound.

Jumping into some of the world's most beautiful libraries would be a dream come true for Gia, if she weren’t busy resisting her heart or dodging an exiled wizard seeking revenge on both the Mystik and human worlds. Add a French flirt obsessed with Arik and a fling with a young wizard, and Gia must choose between her heart and her head, between Arik's world and her own, before both are destroyed.

Dream: to visit all the famous libraries of the world. Maybe discover a secret in one of those libraries, and become part of something bigger. Aka the premise of this book!

Gia Kearns's life changes when she and her friends accidentally get swept up to a completely different part of the world when she bumps into a mysterious young man during an innocent trip to the library. Soaring across famous library to famous library across the world, Gia discovers a world of magic, creatures, and powerful prophecies. As she struggles to make sense how she fits into all of it, she must figure out who to trust, because someone very much wants to use her for evil purposes.

Our protagonist, Gia, begins the book off with a lot of uncertainty. She has no idea what's going on. Her first instinct is survival for herself and for her friends. As the book progresses, we see Gia slowing coming to terms with who she is, and trying to puzzle together the mysteries of strange visions and dreams she begins to have. What I particularly liked about Gia was her dedication to her home, and how torn she was to find out she had to leave her old life. Her realization that she should have taken her family more seriously really struck home the "you don't know what you have until it's gone" message.

Arik was an interesting character to read about. He has a past that we only touch upon, but whatever has happened, it's made him a fierce and determined leader of his group of Sentinels. Arik wasn't the wicked bad-boy type I was expecting. He was more of the sacrificing type, the kind who always is one left to make the hard decisions. But his concern for everyone's safety really shone through, and he generally tries his hardest to protect the rest of his team the best he can.

My favourite character has to be Bastien. He goes through quite a lot in this novel, and his initial relationship with Arik was hilarious to read about. Bastien to me was the character with the most promise of complexity, especially since he's very good at downscaling his emotions. He begins off with complete certainty, and even when he's faced with hardships, he puts on a brave face and continues on. There's a lot of emotional turmoil going on for him, but he masks it perfectly, which only fuels my desire my desire to unmask him and want to see his emotions. He's not the "best friend," he's the general "good guy" who's doing what's right to protect himself and his people. Honestly, who wouldn't like him?

The beginning of this book was sort of a slow burn for me, with relationships and character development dragging on a bit. The world building seemed slightly erratic, with spurts of information occurring at certain times. Similarly, I felt that the beginning of the novel took off much too quickly, without a proper chance to really get to know Gia and connect to her before she was thrown to the wolves. But all these issues were quickly solved once the ball got rolling, and I enjoyed the second half of the novel a lot more. Plus, we got some beautiful descriptions of various libraries, and it literally was like we were in the libraries themselves. Add to this that books are literally portals, with world in-between, and that you can go to various libraries across the world? Never underestimate the power of books and libraries, and the secrets they all can hold! 

The language of some of the characters threw me off. I'm not really a fan of "written" accents, since it basically points out the fact that this is all from a very American standpoint, and depicts French or Irish characters and accents as "other." It grated on my nerves, but it couldn't be helped. I do appreciate the diverse cast of characters, though, as the novel has a global setting. I'm hoping we'll also be able to explore the different cultures of the locations the libraries are in the next book!

The magic system in this novel is quite fascinating. You have normal creatures (fey, werewolves, etc.) but on the human aspect, you have witches, wizards, and Sentinels, all with varying levels of magic. For Sentinels like Gia and Arik, they have these neat globes as magic. Every Sentinel has a light globe (which is a ball of light, as the name suggests), and then they each have their own battle globe, which is a ball of affinity magic. Each Sentinel has one kind of battle globe, the affinity if it depending on the Sentinel. The affinities are all nature based, including fire (Arik's), water, air, electricity, and so forth. It's all a very original take on magic, and I've never really read anything like this before! I definitely want battle globes of my own, just so that I can hurl balls of magic at people. And like every good fantasy, Sentinels also fight with weapons and magic, so there was no short of action!

All in all, a very promising debut. The beginning was a little rocky for me, but it thankfully smoothed out. I'm curious to know what happens in the next one!