General info
Title: Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, Orion Children’s Books
Release date: September 29th 2015 and September 27th 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads
Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he’ll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:
Break into the notorious Ice Court
(a military stronghold that has never been breached)
Retrieve a hostage
(who could unleash magical havoc on the world)
Survive long enough to collect his reward
(and spend it)
Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done – and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable – if they don’t kill each other first
Thoughts
(Please comment if this contains actual spoilers)
I have lost counts of the amount of times I have tried a review with constructive critisism and is not just me rambling about how much I loved this duology. At the end I have decided to just go with it, meaning if you are looking for a review that discusses in debt things and isn’t just personal thoughts you might have to look for another one. Essentially this will be me screaming at you to pick up this duology.
This duology is a fan-favourite, when it was released back in 2015 I remember everyone and their mother talking about it. When a book receives that much hype it can go both ways for me, either I end up reading it immediately or never get to it. You have no idea how many times I picked this book up and read the first chapters but then stopped. It never felt like the right time to read it, 2016 was also the year that I did not read any YA Fantasy which says a lot about my mood of last year. When 2017 eventually sneaked around, together with my exams, I wanted to start this reading year good and decided to finally pick it up at last and I have not regretted it once.
The characters
As a reader, the cast of characters is very important. If I can’t find myself to care about any of them there’s a huge chance I will not continue with it and just DNF it. Obviously this wasn’t the case with this duology.
Bardugo has created a cast of characters that are actually morally grey and I don’t mean those bland YA characters that you we got in the years 2013-2014. She knows how to create characters that come off the paper and even though you don’t always get the choices they make, you realise that it’s not necessary to get them as people. The amount of times I was frustrated with them are a lot, truly, but I like that. I don’t need characters that I find myself constantly agreeing with, if I wanted that I could write a memoire about myself. These characters felt genuine and real. They existed on their own but their dynamics made everything a hundred times better. They fit, they are a family who have gone through hell for each other and would do everything again because they know they have each other.
Two words: Female Friendship. Yes, I wrote that with capital letters because I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the friendship between Nina and Inej. These are two girls who have gone through hell alright, all the characters have but it’s about my two favourite girls right now, but they still in their hearts they have hope and are pure. They know that life isn’t fair and you have to work hard for eveything but they also know that happiness is possible. They support each other so much and also what a team. This is how you write a female friendship, they are supportive and caring and understanding towards each other. They deserve all the waffles in the world alright?
I honestly thought that I was not going to like Kaz Brekker, in the beginning I was truly scared that he was just going to be another asshole. Turns out he generally is an asshole towards people but I still warmed up to him. He is not always the nicest person but does not discriminate. I think that’s a fine line to walk up, one that many YA authors try to use in their story but in the wrong way. He isn’t denegrading towards the female characters in any way and treats everyone with an amount of respect. He basically adopts 6 lost children and protects them even though he’ll never acknowledge it.
Just an honary mention of Matthias, who I could not stand that boy in the first book but eventually I warmed up to him. He’s the perfect example of how, when given the chance and own willingness, you can always learn from your mistakes and how you were raised does not define and determine your path in life.
I know I haven’t said anything about Wylan and Jesper but I could write a whole novel about my love for these two. I don’t necessarily mean the two of them together because obviously they are their own person but I always found myself looking forward to their parts, mainly because I wanted to know more about their background story. Except for Kaz, we kind of have an idea where the other characters come from but for these three boys it feels like every chapters tells us something more about them.
In conclusion I just want to thank Leigh Bardugo for creating a diverse cast of characters, not just all white teenagers with a privileged past and abled bodies that fit into society its norms. They are relatable and loveable, some descisions are questionable but at the end you understand why they did what they did.
The world + writing
Miss Bardugo can write a story and build a world that makes sense in my head. I really enjoyed the way both books were written. This woman truly has a talent for writing banter and conversations, but just her writing style is gorgeous. She has a way of words and some parts I found myself needing to close the book because she just put something in a certain way and I had to tell myself to ‘just breathe’.
In my opinion both books were more focused on the characters, which isn’t a bad thing and also completely normal when you have multiple perspectives. I have read some people that would have liked more details about the scenery but for me it’s not necesarry at all. I was able to create a clear image of every scene that happened!
Also every heist story that is going to be written or the ones I read from now on are compared to this series and I am not even ashamed of it.
Overall score
This duology has taken over my entire existence and I am really happy that I picked it up. It definitely is worth all the hype it received when it came out and still deserves the hype nowadays. The characters are great and diverse, the story itself is really interesting and even though the books are long in pages it doesn’t feel like it drags anything out. This definitely is one of my new favourite series and that’s also why I have given both books five out of five stars.
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