Match BookThe Thief
Megan Whalen Turner
1996 · 280 pages · Young adult
How it reads
The Thief is young adult (young-adult fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.
It's set in an invented world, in no single period, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are identity, friendship and redemption. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.
It opens a series. The ending resolves happily. At 280 pages it's a quick read. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something adventurous
- you want a book that pulls you through
- you like disappearing into an invented world
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or melancholy
- you want dense, lingering prose
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- young adult
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- early career
- Setting: place
- fictional world
- Setting: time
- timeless or multiple
- Mood / feeling
- adventurous
- Pace
- fast paced
- Tone / weight
- balanced
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- first person, one narrator
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- identity, friendship, redemption
- Ending style
- resolved and happy
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The Girl of Fire and ThornsRae CarsonShares: young adult, adventurous mood, balanced tone, young-adult fantasy
The Blue SwordRobin McKinleyShares: young adult, adventurous mood, balanced tone, resolved and happy ending
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanJ.K. RowlingShares: adventurous mood, balanced tone, young-adult fantasy, fast paced- There Will Come a DarknessKaty Rose PoolShares: young adult, adventurous mood, balanced tone, fast paced
- Bones of FaerieJanni Lee SimnerShares: young adult, adventurous mood, balanced tone, fast paced
- Dragon StormLindsay BurokerShares: adventurous mood, fast paced, resolved and happy ending, set in an invented world
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