What do readers think of Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein? Write your own review.

Fagin the Thief treads the now familiar trope of an alternate POV of a classic story. It does so without the Antisemitism of the original and makes Fagin out to be a sympathetic character dealing with the extreme poverty of 19th century London and early loss of parents. he is given a childhood thieving mentor which he in turn becomes to other boys over time. I'll not spoil the ending but it was satisfying.

An interesting re-telling of Oliver Twist. The author writes well and offers interesting insight into the characters. The historical background and depiction of the "justice" system was intriguing.

I loved the first 3/4 of this novel. The Dickens novel, Oliver Twist, is the basis of this story but told from the point of view of Fagin. Unfortunately, I never read Oliver, although I did see the musical, so I'm not sure his much of Epstein's novel is complete reinvention. London of the 1800's comes alive and I felt a lot of empathy with many of the characters, who are complicated and multi dimensional. The ending was less successful for me, although I'm not sure of a satisfying ending was possible.

I was immediately drawn to the premise of the plot and wanted to learn more about the infamous Fagin from Dickens' Oliver Twist. However, the first half of the story is told at almost arm's length – a distance. It feels more like an accounting of Fagin's life, rather than being in his head to understand why he is who he is. Why does Fagin find pickpocketing so exciting in the first place? It's never explored, he just does. How did his loss drive him? That's never explored, just a summary of the early years he has on the streets. The plot was slow this first half as the author struggled to give Fagin motivation. But the second half of the novel was plot-driven and a page turner and fun to read. I enjoyed the author's take on what happened to the characters, but felt the point of this story was to show why. And I feel that question was never answered.

Sadly, I found this book quite boring. So much of the book was detail after detail about petty theft. I didn't get a good feel for Fagin or the other characters in the book. I wish there was more insight into the characters relationships with each other, their own thoughts/beliefs, etc. I don't know that I feel like I took away a backstory to Fagin of Oliver Twist, which was a disappointment. This one just wasn't for me.