Book Review #72 of 2023--
Aces Wild: A Heist by Amanda DeWitt. Rating: 3.75 stars.
Read from June 6th to 8th.
My local Barnes & Noble was having a ridiculous half off sale because that location is closing down to move to a different town. (I talked to the manager of the store about it and there were a ton of reasons for the move, but that’s not the point of this review.) And as I was browsing through every single shelf that still had books on it I stumbled upon this one. I loved the title for two reasons: 1) hey, I’m asexual and this is hilarious, 2) I will read about anyone pulling off a heist. Me, you, your mother. I don’t care who is heisting I just wanna see it happen. (Probably the reason my favorite show of the past few years has been Leverage.) Then I came to find out that this book is about an all asexual group of teens pulling off a heist in Las Vegas. Let’s fucking go.
I loved the Vegas-ness of it all. It really reminded me of the first couple seasons of the original CSI where you got to see the ins and outs of Las Vegas while not getting too star struck by the bright lights and big city of the strip. I loved following Jack and seeing him weave his way in and out of the showy side of Vegas and the behind the scenes. I also really enjoyed seeing how this group of asexuals who all met online while discussing fandom and “what is wrong with me” meeting in real life and seeing that the bonds of online friendship do still hold in real life. We also had teenagers actually acting like teenagers. Instead of the shitty thing that’s been happening in publishing lately which is to write an Adult novel and then age down all the characters so it gets categorized as a YA. These teens act like teens, make poorly thought out plans like teens, fight like teens, talk like teens. It was really refreshing to see that.
All of that being said though...that heist was kind of not great. I know the overarching plot requires the group to fail and try again. But the whole time I thought there was going to be some major twist in the plan or something that the reader couldn’t see but that the characters could pull off to make it work. Again, this all makes sense for the plot and for the fact that it’s about a bunch of teenage kids trying to pull a heist against a major casino owner on the Las Vegas strip. Like, it was never going to run smoothly. The twist that actually happened at the end of the novel wasn’t a surprise to me at all, but I didn’t mind it. I liked seeing how it would all play out. Overall, it was a super fun and easy read with some great asexual representation without making the book all about them being asexual.
