Review: The Gilded Wolves, by Roshani Chokshi (The Gilded Wolves #1)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Young Adult Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Goodreads / Amazon

The Gilded Wolves has created quite a stir in the YA reader community, giving off Six of Crows vibes with its lovable crew, heists and cool fantasy world. It’s Paris, 1889 and the air is full of tension and wish for revolution. Meet the characters:

Séverin, a rich hotelier who desperately wants his inheritance back.
Tristan, his brother, who loves all things living.
Laila, a dancer with a dark secret.
Zofia, an engineer with a debt to pay.
Enrique, a historian nerd with a desire to prove himself.

When they get hired by Hypnos, the patriarch of one of the most powerful houses, to steal a ring, this could be what sets them all free from any debt and to pursue their dreams.

This was like a Six of Crows, Indian Jones and Dan Brown mashup, with riddles and chases and heists! It’s definitely a fun adventure story and I was entertained! But it did not capture my heart. The pacing was a bit strange, perhaps because it was an audiobook, the jumps between memories and what was happening at the moment was hard to follow. I was confused a bunch of times. I didn’t love the male narrator, his tone was always the same and I got a bit bored. His character voices were better, but I liked the female narrator a lot more.

The characters were so sweet! A lot of them were stereotypes, though, and didn’t have more personality than their one-liners. Zofia was (predictably) my favorite of them, but she too felt like a stereotype of an autistic character and, although I can absolutely relate to her, she was a bit too scripted.

All in all, I did enjoy this book! It was fun trying to solve the riddles, and the fun story that warmed my heart with the cool rep! It was just not wow-ed by it. But I do recommend it to my bookish friends, because I think it’s the kind of book that lots of people will actually enjoy and maybe even love.