BOOK REVIEW | Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief by Rosie Somers

Title: Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief
Author: Rosie Somers
Series? No, but wouldn't be surprised if a sequel was made
Pages: 206
Publication Date: August 7, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Source: I got a galley of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you!

Most sixteen-year-olds shouldn’t know where museums keep their rarest jewels (the basement) and they really shouldn’t know that vans make the worst getaway cars. But for Marisol Flores, a life of jewel thievery is a birthright handed down from generation to generation, even if she didn’t ask for it. So when a rival thief targets Mari and her mother, Mari’s more than happy to flee to the anonymity of bustling New York City.

Blending in is a dream come true for Mari, but keeping her former thieving ways a secret gets way more complicated when handsome Will Campbell sets his sights on her. She can’t help but like his terrible puns and charming grin…but when her past catches up with her, it’s not only her life—and her anonymity—that’s at stake.

Will could be the next target.

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Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief was such a hard book to rate for me. Now, it wasn't a hard book to read by any means, but once I finsihed I wasn't sure how I felt about it. For the msot part, I wasn't critcally reading this book. I was just picking it up whenever I felt like it and didn't actually analyze the book that much. I think if I were to have done this the whole time, i would have njoyed the book better. Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief isn't meant to be picked apart, it's just meant to be a cute teenage thriller without a whole lot of suspense. When I got around the 70 percent mark though, I just couldn't hold back any longer, and there were a couple of key things that led to me not LOVING this book.

First off is the romance. Right from the get-go I wasn't on board with the romance. I just couldn't feel the chemistry, and every single one of Marisol and Will's interactions felt awkward to me. I feel like this might have been done on purpose to show that although Mari is a professional thief, she's still an awkward teenager. However, basically all of the characters interactions felt awkward and at times forced. I never cared about the romance and thought it was unnecessary. It wasn't until near the end though that I actually had a problem with it. Before then, I was just indifferent.

I don't know if I picked this up late or if it was just in the last 20 percent of the book, but there was a weird ownership quality to the romance. There were phrases used like "That's my Will", "He's mine", "I belong to you", etc. in the short span of the last 20 percent. These phrases are supposed to be swoony and show that they only have eyes for each other, but it made me feel...icky? The whole ownership that the two proclaimed to each other just rubbed me the wrong way. No one should feel as if a person is THEIRS, and it got pretty frustrating.

Also, none of the characters were that complex or complicated except for the narrator. Mari was a nice narrator, but much of the book is solely focused on her that we don't learn about the other characters. Because of this, I didn't care for anyone. Oh, this character was kidnapped and character X was conning you the whole time? I don't care because I barely remember their names, let alone anything important about them! I just had this sense of detachment when reading the book. It was like being at a party and just people watching. You're there, but you aren't participating. A couple more scenes between Mari and her mother would have been nice, as well as her with some other teenagers to get that juxtaposition between jewel thief and awkward teen.

the opening line of the book!

My last big complaint is that Mari's skill set wasn't utilized enough. We're told she's trained in Krav Maga, is fluent in multiple languages, etc. The book opens with her scaling a building, and yet that is one of the few times we see her skills in action. She does have a wonderful sequence around the 60 percent mark, but that's all we really get. Once Mari teams up with other people, they steal the spotlight. I wish that Mari would have done more of the action instead of standing there and watching it happen. Instead of people protecting Mari, I wanted to see her work with them as a team.


Besides all of this, I still had an okay time reading this book. Even though I couldn't connect with the characters that well, thought the romance missed the mark, and Mari wasn't used as much, the premise is still a fun one. There are good chunks of the book where I was having fun reading it and really into the story. This book could have had an extra 20 to 30 pages to really give this book the extra "umph" it needed to make me enjoy it more. The writing itself was done pretty well, and I would read something else by Somers in the future.

Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief wasn't great by any means, but it wasn't awful or boring. I had a pretty fun time with it, and would recommend it to anyone who is just looking for a quick heist read.

With that, I give this book
3 out of 5 Stars!