I've had this on my to read list probably since it came out, and after reading and loving Magic For Liars this week I though this would be a no brainer to read next. Unfortunately it was just a mess. Or maybe not quite a mess but.. something just less than a mess.

I think the basic premise was good, and it had a lot of good ideas, it just didn't translate to the page. I think my main issue is that there just wasn't enough world building. It's a neat short story but it really could have been set anywhere at any time and not even with hippos. You could have replaced the word "hippo" with "horse" or "cow" or "elephant" and probably had almost exactly the same story.

Add to this, I constantly found myself mixing up characters, I think because we didn't really get to know the characters very well. And when characters died I didn't really care and none of the other characters seemed to care either. There was some attempt at romance, but it didn't feel like any of the characters had any kind of chemisty, romantic or otherwise. I can probably count on one hand the number of conversations some characters had with each other. And just a picky thing for me, too many characters starting with the same letter of the alphabet. Hero, Houndstooth, Archie, Abigail.

I think also the problem was there nothing unexpected here. The plot was very much the plot of any heist novel/movie/tv show. A leads to B leads C. The End.

And you can't even blame any of that on it being being a novella, because plenty of other novellas have had amazing world building and depth.

I guess I am disappointed, because it just sounded like it should be SO good. But it was fairly underwhelming.