It took me a long time to buy Ally Carter’s Heist Society because when I walked by it in the bookstore I just saw the big sunglasses and the word society and thought, no, I have too much Gossip Girl in my life as it is. And then I finally looked closer and I freaking loved that book like few others I read last year. When I found out Uncommon Criminals was coming? I did a happy dance of happy happiness. That happy dance was repeated when, in the throes of misery about not finding Demon’s Surrender out a day early, I was trudging to the exit and passed the Uncommon Criminals display. The happy dancing? It continued until I was at the end. And such happy dancing it was.
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long — and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous, and that is . . . the emerald is cursed.
Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. After all, she has her best friend — the gorgeous Hale — and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses and realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time. Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.
I started out my review of Heist Society talking about my love for Kat, and honestly she was what I loved most about Uncommon Criminals as well. Ally Carter has a gift for growing her characters. She takes Kat’s combined experiences as this book progresses and combines them with the last to the point that I felt like Kat is a little further along in figuring out who she is every time I turned the page. It’s a rare thing to watch a character make mistakes and screw up and take something from the experience, and getting to see Kat recognize her mistakes without obsessing about them was good.
I also love how businesslike Kat, and all of the characters are, really, without seeming like adults. I’ve been reading a lot of books lately where kids and teens just don’t seem believable for the age that’s stated. Kat is 15, and so many times she seems older than that. But then she’ll do something or think something and you’ll remember. Yes, she’s incredibly mature, but she’s also 15. Yes, she is capable of organizing a heist and leading a crew – capable of focusing herself on the task at hand – but she also can’t stop thinking about other things sometimes in an adorably 15 year old way. It makes for a good balance.
Hale in this book was (if possible) even more amazing than he was in Heist Society. Like Kat, he is the perfect balance for someone with a bit of an old soul, who is mature for his age (made more believable by his astoundingly wealthy upbringing) but who also tends to react to certain things like any boy his age might. How he is with Kat evolved from Heist Society as well. There, he let Kat make decisions and take care of herself. And he still does that in Uncommon Criminals. But when Kat starts making decisions that he disagrees with, he isn’t afraid to tell her so.
The plot in this novel was as interesting and thoroughly planned as that of Heist Society. What made it special is that I truly think this novel could have been a standalone in addition to being a perfect follow-up. The exposition of the events from the previous book didn’t feel like an info dump and were spread out so that you could have slowly pieced it all together yourself. That’s something that happens so little now in a time where every YA book isn’t a book but a series (not that I’m complaining).
I will admit that I didn’t enjoy the actual heisting quite as much, but then again there was a lot less heisting? If that even makes sense. Sure, there were still some crazy (and awesome) capers. But this book, in a lot of ways, was kind of like the politics behind the heists. We got to find out about the players and what goes on behind the scenes. We found out more about Kat’s family without it being vague. Part of me found some of this slightly unbelievable, but then within days I read an article about an ancient goblet disappearing from a church in the middle of the day when it was displayed in plain sight. That just reminded me how good Kat was.
One of my very favorite things about Ally Carter’s books is that, while there is romance, romance isn’t the plot. Sometimes I wished there was more. Sometimes I wanted to yell…NO! Stop plotting and think about your feelings some more! However, never in a bad way. Because it really shows the reader a lot about Kat. She cares about people. She really cares about some people. But she also has a purpose, and that often has to come first. She isn’t a wuss – she confronts it – but she also isn’t perfect and it takes her a while. Plus, any time I can read a book where it becomes clear to me that there is no/will be no love triangle? Victory.
Ally Carter’s books are just straight up smart, fun, entertaining reads. Her writing achieves an almost perfect balance of the three as well. I always want to read them in one sitting, and I always smile/pout/gasp my way through. If you haven’t read Heist Society, please do so before Uncommon Criminals so as not to ruin your suspense. But if you were a genius like me and read Heist Society ages ago, Uncommon Criminals is a great follow-up that you’ll love just as much as its predecessor.
It took me a long time to buy Ally Carter’s Heist Society because when I walked by it in the bookstore I just saw the big sunglasses and the word society and thought, no, I have too much Gossip Girl in my life as it is. And then I finally looked closer and I freaking loved that book like few others I read last year. When I found out Uncommon Criminals was coming? I did a happy dance of happy happiness. That happy dance was repeated when, in the throes of misery about not finding Demon’s Surrender out a day early, I was trudging to the exit and passed the Uncommon Criminals display. The happy dancing? It continued until I was at the end. And such happy dancing it was.
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long — and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous, and that is . . . the emerald is cursed.
Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. After all, she has her best friend — the gorgeous Hale — and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses and realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time. Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.
I started out my review of Heist Society talking about my love for Kat, and honestly she was what I loved most about Uncommon Criminals as well. Ally Carter has a gift for growing her characters. She takes Kat’s combined experiences as this book progresses and combines them with the last to the point that I felt like Kat is a little further along in figuring out who she is every time I turned the page. It’s a rare thing to watch a character make mistakes and screw up and take something from the experience, and getting to see Kat recognize her mistakes without obsessing about them was good.
I also love how businesslike Kat, and all of the characters are, really, without seeming like adults. I’ve been reading a lot of books lately where kids and teens just don’t seem believable for the age that’s stated. Kat is 15, and so many times she seems older than that. But then she’ll do something or think something and you’ll remember. Yes, she’s incredibly mature, but she’s also 15. Yes, she is capable of organizing a heist and leading a crew – capable of focusing herself on the task at hand – but she also can’t stop thinking about other things sometimes in an adorably 15 year old way. It makes for a good balance.
Hale in this book was (if possible) even more amazing than he was in Heist Society. Like Kat, he is the perfect balance for someone with a bit of an old soul, who is mature for his age (made more believable by his astoundingly wealthy upbringing) but who also tends to react to certain things like any boy his age might. How he is with Kat evolved from Heist Society as well. There, he let Kat make decisions and take care of herself. And he still does that in Uncommon Criminals. But when Kat starts making decisions that he disagrees with, he isn’t afraid to tell her so.
The plot in this novel was as interesting and thoroughly planned as that of Heist Society. What made it special is that I truly think this novel could have been a standalone in addition to being a perfect follow-up. The exposition of the events from the previous book didn’t feel like an info dump and were spread out so that you could have slowly pieced it all together yourself. That’s something that happens so little now in a time where every YA book isn’t a book but a series (not that I’m complaining).
I will admit that I didn’t enjoy the actual heisting quite as much, but then again there was a lot less heisting? If that even makes sense. Sure, there were still some crazy (and awesome) capers. But this book, in a lot of ways, was kind of like the politics behind the heists. We got to find out about the players and what goes on behind the scenes. We found out more about Kat’s family without it being vague. Part of me found some of this slightly unbelievable, but then within days I read an article about an ancient goblet disappearing from a church in the middle of the day when it was displayed in plain sight. That just reminded me how good Kat was.
One of my very favorite things about Ally Carter’s books is that, while there is romance, romance isn’t the plot. Sometimes I wished there was more. Sometimes I wanted to yell…NO! Stop plotting and think about your feelings some more! However, never in a bad way. Because it really shows the reader a lot about Kat. She cares about people. She really cares about some people. But she also has a purpose, and that often has to come first. She isn’t a wuss – she confronts it – but she also isn’t perfect and it takes her a while. Plus, any time I can read a book where it becomes clear to me that there is no/will be no love triangle? Victory.
Ally Carter’s books are just straight up smart, fun, entertaining reads. Her writing achieves an almost perfect balance of the three as well. I always want to read them in one sitting, and I always smile/pout/gasp my way through. If you haven’t read Heist Society
It took me a long time to buy Ally Carter’s Heist Society because when I walked by it in the bookstore I just saw the big sunglasses and the word society and thought, no, I have too much Gossip Girl in my life as it is. And then I finally looked closer and I freaking loved that book like few others I read last year. When I found out Uncommon Criminals was coming? I did a happy dance of happy happiness. That happy dance was repeated when, in the throes of misery about not finding Demon’s Surrender out a day early, I was trudging to the exit and passed the Uncommon Criminals display. The happy dancing? It continued until I was at the end. And such happy dancing it was.
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long — and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous, and that is . . . the emerald is cursed.
Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. After all, she has her best friend — the gorgeous Hale — and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses and realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time. Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.
I started out my review of Heist Society talking about my love for Kat, and honestly she was what I loved most about Uncommon Criminals as well. Ally Carter has a gift for growing her characters. She takes Kat’s combined experiences as this book progresses and combines them with the last to the point that I felt like Kat is a little further along in figuring out who she is every time I turned the page. It’s a rare thing to watch a character make mistakes and screw up and take something from the experience, and getting to see Kat recognize her mistakes without obsessing about them was good.
I also love how businesslike Kat, and all of the characters are, really, without seeming like adults. I’ve been reading a lot of books lately where kids and teens just don’t seem believable for the age that’s stated. Kat is 15, and so many times she seems older than that. But then she’ll do something or think something and you’ll remember. Yes, she’s incredibly mature, but she’s also 15. Yes, she is capable of organizing a heist and leading a crew – capable of focusing herself on the task at hand – but she also can’t stop thinking about other things sometimes in an adorably 15 year old way. It makes for a good balance.
Hale in this book was (if possible) even more amazing than he was in Heist Society. Like Kat, he is the perfect balance for someone with a bit of an old soul, who is mature for his age (made more believable by his astoundingly wealthy upbringing) but who also tends to react to certain things like any boy his age might. How he is with Kat evolved from Heist Society as well. There, he let Kat make decisions and take care of herself. And he still does that in Uncommon Criminals. But when Kat starts making decisions that he disagrees with, he isn’t afraid to tell her so.
The plot in this novel was as interesting and thoroughly planned as that of Heist Society. What made it special is that I truly think this novel could have been a standalone in addition to being a perfect follow-up. The exposition of the events from the previous book didn’t feel like an info dump and were spread out so that you could have slowly pieced it all together yourself. That’s something that happens so little now in a time where every YA book isn’t a book but a series (not that I’m complaining).
I will admit that I didn’t enjoy the actual heisting quite as much, but then again there was a lot less heisting? If that even makes sense. Sure, there were still some crazy (and awesome) capers. But this book, in a lot of ways, was kind of like the politics behind the heists. We got to find out about the players and what goes on behind the scenes. We found out more about Kat’s family without it being vague. Part of me found some of this slightly unbelievable, but then within days I read an article about an ancient goblet disappearing from a church in the middle of the day when it was displayed in plain sight. That just reminded me how good Kat was.
One of my very favorite things about Ally Carter’s books is that, while there is romance, romance isn’t the plot. Sometimes I wished there was more. Sometimes I wanted to yell…NO! Stop plotting and think about your feelings some more! However, never in a bad way. Because it really shows the reader a lot about Kat. She cares about people. She really cares about some people. But she also has a purpose, and that often has to come first. She isn’t a wuss – she confronts it – but she also isn’t perfect and it takes her a while. Plus, any time I can read a book where it becomes clear to me that there is no/will be no love triangle? Victory.
Ally Carter’s books are just straight up smart, fun, entertaining reads. Her writing achieves an almost perfect balance of the three as well. I always want to read them in one sitting, and I always smile/pout/gasp my way through. If you haven’t read Heist Society, please do so before Uncommon Criminals so as not to ruin your suspense. But if you were a genius like me and read Heist Society ages ago, Uncommon Criminals is a great follow-up that you’ll love just as much as its predecessor.
, please do so before Uncommon Criminals so as not to ruin your suspense. But if you were a genius like me and read Heist Society ages ago, Uncommon Criminals is a great follow-up that you’ll love just as much as its predecessor.