The Brockporter Book Of The Week - The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

I found The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti on my book shelf, read it, and when asked by Cody at Lift Bridge Book Shop what good books I had read lately, I mentioned it, at which point one of the other Lift Bridge book sellers said, "Oh that was the All Rochester Reads book selection a couple of years ago."

Even though I love books and am always interested in the All Rochester Reads book selection somehow this fact didn't register on my radar screen although it might have at the time which is why I bought the book in the first place, but obviously never read it until two years later. It was the All Rochester Reads book selection for 2011.

At any rate, I finally got around to it, and I enjoyed it for the most part, but another part of me was disappointed. But first some background from Writers and Books.

From the Writers and Books web site:

Richly imagined, gothically spooky and replete with the ingenious storytelling ability of a born novelist, The Good Thief introduces one of the most appealing young heroes in contemporary fiction and ratifies Hannah Tinti as one of our most exciting new talents.
Twelve-year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own and is terrified of the day he will be sent alone into the world.
But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren’s long-lost brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to release the boy and to give Ren some hope. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through a New England of whaling towns and meadowed farmlands, Ren is introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he’s lost once again. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds the key to his future, but to his past as well.
The Good Thief was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award, winner of the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, and a recipient of the American Library Association’s Alex Award, given annually to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18. The novel was on the “Best of 2008” lists of the San Antonio Express, the Florida Sun Sentinel, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the Washington Post. Kirkus Review selected The Good Thief for its “Best Fiction of 2008” list and the San Francisco Chronicle picked The Good Thief for its “Best 50 Fiction & Poetry of 2008″ list. In 2011, The Good Thief made the longlist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

While Ren is a very sympathetic and likable character the question of right and wrong, good and evil, the end justifying the means, in short, questions about moral psychology and behavior are never resolved in any satisfying way. In this realm the book is fanciful and borders at time upon farce. Would Tinti have had a better book if she had dealt with these quandaries more seriously? I think so.

I wish I had read the book back at the time everyone else was reading it back in 2011 so I could have participated in the book discussions and learned other people's thoughts, and feelings about the book. Perhaps, if you read it you would leave a comment about your experience.

Bottom line, I recommend The Good Thief.