City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

Title: City of Saints & Thieves
Author: Natalie C. Anderson
Genre: Mystery & Suspense, Realistic Fiction
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Date: January 24, 2017
Length: 432 pages

Free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Gone Girl in this enthralling YA murder mystery set in Kenya. In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn't exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill's personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it.
With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City’s local gang. It’s a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she’s been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she’s overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life. But finally uncovering the incredible truth about who killed her mother—and why—keeps her holding on in this fast-paced nail-biting thriller.

Description from Goodreads

Who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, and who's the bad guy you can live with?

Tina is a 16 year old so full of love for her family that she has devoted her life to revenge. She hid her sister in a gated school, joined a gang, and became the best thief in Sangui City. She hones herself into an instrument of destruction in order to utterly ruin her mother's murderer, with little care for the other innocents that will get caught up in his downfall.

What I liked

The Characters: Tina was wonderful. She has such a huge heart and she has forged herself down into a weapon in order to become the means of Mr. Greyhill's destruction. And while being a thief means she has to "own" the fact that she doesn't exist, she never allows herself to become disposable. Despite her warped image of herself, she has friends (though she wouldn't call them that) who are willing to fight for her. Her eventual awareness of this fact helps her to save herself and them.

Mama used to say I needed role models. I think she was talking about the saints. But if you are a thief, these are your heroes: Catwoman. Robin Hood, obviously. But not just them. There are others you should know: Phoolan Devi, vengeance-delivering "bandit queen" of India. Zheng She, captain of three hundred ships on the South China Sea and badass lady pirate. Not your typical heroes. Murderers, most of them. They're not winning any awards for sportsmanship. But if you think they didn't follow rules, or that they didn't know right from wrong, you're very mistaken... At some point, someone did them all wrong. Very wrong. Monster-making wrong... My heroes' actions aren't extreme. They are just doing what is necessary to make the universe balanced again.

At first glance Boyboy could easily be written off as the sassy gay friend but he comes across as so much more. He loves Tina and does his best to protect her in his own way. And while it seems that he's unrealistically good at hacking, remember he's a refugee and he's mastered the skills he needs to survive. He is also practical and brave and I love him.

Boyboy is not my friend.
He's my business partner. Big difference. He's from Congo too, so I don't have to explain certain things to him that I'd rather not talk about, like where my family is, or why I don't really sleep, or why men in uniforms make me twitch.

Michael is a spoiled rich kid who is totally out of top his depth, but he hangs in there because it means holding onto Tina. He wants to prove his father's innocence, but you can tell he hopes that the proof will also allow Tina to stay with him. His family dynamic has put him in a terrible place but he's doing all he can to Nancy Drew his way through it and make things better for everyone.

Anderson's supporting cast of characters and villains are also realistic and reflect the greed, fear, and fight to survive of people in untenable situations. There is loss and suffering in this book, but Anderson's portrayal of refugees and those caught in unending war shows them not just as victims but also as tenacious survivors. Some people do bad things for good reasons, some sell a bit of their soul to safeguard others. There is very little black and white in this book.

Anderson's experience informed her writing: I will admit that before I requested City of Saints & Thieves, I did a little research on Anderson. I was not interested in reading a book by someone who had no experience with the people or countries she was writing about. I was drawn to the fact that she used to work in Africa interviewing refugees applying for asylum in the US. Anderson's personal experience helped her create a variety of realistic characters. I also liked that she wanted to write a strong, competent heroine.
Here's To Happy Endings has a nice interview with Anderson that's worth reading.

Honest about the brutality of war and poverty: This book discusses violence and rape and the survivors, but it doesn't dwell on the topic in a sensational tabloid way. It is a horrible and destructive fact of life and survivors come out very different on the other end.

I blink. "She's a prostitute?" Sister Dorothy's face confirms the answer."People blame her? It's not as if she asked to be taken!"
The sister suddenly looks very old. "People are complicated creatures, my dear. The ways they find of explaining the bad things that happen in the world are not always the right ones. Sometimes they are simply the easy ones. They are the ones that give them enough comfort to sleep at night, the ones that let them take the blame off themselves."
I twist my glass on the table. "That's shitty."
"Yes, I suppose it is... shitty."

What I'm on the fence about

Tina's "knowing": This story has a lot of twists and turns, and that's not a negative. They underscore how much of Tina's history is lost not only with the death of her mother, but in fleeing Congo as well. There was one particular event that only bothers me because Tina said something to the effect of she should have guessed it as "she had known all along". I'm not bothered because I didn't figure it out earlier, it's just that her knowing seemed to come from nowhere. I just sat there thinking, "What? How could you have known that?" It's not a bad thing, just something that's stuck with me.

Rating: 5

This is not my normal type of book, but a YA suspense set in Kenya with a refugee as a heroine really struck a chord. I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would. I liked it even when I was curled up, clenching my jaw, and completely stressed out because the tension in this book Does. Not. Let. Up. Anderson's writing was wonderful and I finished the book with so much hope for Tina, but also sad because I wanted more of this kick butt heroine.

Have you read City of Saints & Thieves? I kind of wish there was more Boyboy in there, don't you? What did you think of Tina's decision to remain a thief? And how wonderful is that cover?