Hearth and Pages: City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson (ARC)

“People don’t look for revenge to make them happy.

They do it because they must.”

City of Saints and Thieves tells a story about a girl named Tina, who escaped from Congo with her mom years ago as refuges and begin their new safer life in Sangui City. Unfortunately for them, safe doesn’t last long. Her mother was murdered, shot dead in the middle of the night. Seeking for revenge, Tina spends her life on the street and training as a master thief with local gang, the Goondas. Four years went by, and now her job with the Goondas brings her back to a place where her mother was killed and open a path for Tina to avenged her mother’s death. But revenge is not an easy game to play as the faces from the past starting to haunt her and unravel some dark truths that Tina might not ready to face.

I was lucky enough to received this ARC from Books Beyond as a prize for participating on their event on instagram. They’re supposed to give 100 random books to 100 people, and I was so afraid I will get a sappy romance book, but it turns out I got this pretty awesome thriller instead. So, thank you Books Beyond for chosing this book for me!

I personally feel that this book is a breath of fresh air in YA genre. City of Saints and Thieves is definitely one of the most well written YA thriller I have ever read. If you ever read any of my reviews on YA book the one that will win me over right on the bat is a multidimensional characters, and this book has it. I won’t say that I love the main character, but I like her quite a lot. There are times when I want to strangle Tina because she’s so oblivious, but she’s a pretty complex character and I like her for that.

The way Anderson set this story is also so daring, vibrant, and yet beautiful. This book has a great deal of diversity and the way Anderson handle it is really well. Often times when a white author tries to write a story about people of colors they ended up doing some cultural appropriation, even though they didn’t have any intentions to do it. Now, I know that this book is not about my people, but I am confident enough to say that Anderson handle this book very well. I think that’s because Anderson herself has worked with some NGOs and UN on refugee relief and development in Africa.

Another thing that I really like about this book is how ‘grey’ the story is. No character in this book who is really good or evil, no one is truly stand on the light side and no one is truly belongs to the dark side. I really like this kind of story because that’s how it is in the real world. At the beginning, like the main character herself, we might think that a certain character is right and the other is wrong. But then as the story goes on and we will realized that everything stood in the grey area. What is right and what is wrong are depends on which perspective we chose to see it.

What I don’t like from this book is that no matter how awesome this book is, it still can’t escape some certain YA tropes. I also don’t like the “love-interest-but-not-really-love-interest” part in this book. I really hope that this book won’t take the romance part but then again, you can always get what you want and I just have to accept it. That being said, it doesn’t mean that the romance in this book is bad. It’s not bad and honestly there’s not many of romance scene in this book, but I’m just really tired of this type of romance. Especially in YA books.

Also, I have to say that some parts of this book is not easy to read. There are things that really happen in war which is described in a pretty descriptive way in this book. I believe those certain parts might triggered bad memories or trauma for some people. I honestly think that Anderson didn’t put them there for shock value. There are purpose for those scenes, and I do think that Anderson handle that part quite well. But just in case, I put some trigger warnings below in case you really want to avoid it.

In conclusion, I really recommend City of Saints and Thieves if you want a breathe of fresh air from YA department. Especially if you want to read a pretty diverse story. It’s a really well-written book and I hope there are more YA books like this.