Parents' Guide to

Thieving Weasels

By Mary Eisenhart, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Dark, funny tale of teen trying to flee his criminal family.

Thieving Weasels Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Community Reviews

age 17+

Based on 1 parent review

age 17+

Traumatic and full of WRONG messages, also not really clever

Maybe I'm picky, but although my kids know about guns, sex, alcohol, and drugs, I don't recommend they read recreationally about them. This book has traumatic violent and disturbing scenes and normalizes very risky behavior. I teach sex ed, and am a nurse, and every nook and cranny of our house has books, and I love my kids exploring new and unique ideas. This being said, this book got a review of "Just, not okay" from my young adult!

This title has:

Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Dark, profane, and often hysterically funny, Billy Taylor's YA debut finds a Princeton-bound prep-schooler trying to escape his birth family of liars, crooks, scoundrels, and possibly murderers. Narrator Cam's efforts to stay one step ahead of his thieving relatives involve outsmarting them -- but also a return to the criminal ways of his youth.

The pace is quick -- the better to entangle the reader in the convoluted plots the characters devise against one another -- with more than a few nail-biting moments before the final confrontation.

Book Details

  • Author: Billy Taylor
  • Genre: Contemporary Fiction
  • Book type: Fiction
  • Publisher: Dial
  • Publication date: August 23, 2016
  • Publisher's recommended age(s): 12 - 18
  • Number of pages: 256
  • Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
  • Last updated: July 13, 2017

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