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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a follow-up series taking place a few years after the Grishaverse Trilogy, focusing on a group of criminals in another country.
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone.
A convict with a thirst for revenge
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager
A runaway with a privileged past
A spy known as the Wraith
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes
Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.
This is it! After slugging through the Grishverse trilogy, dealing with the utter headache that is Alina's narrative, we have reached the all-raved-about Six of Crows!
And I've just gotta say...
It was mostly worth it.
Now before I get into gushing, I'll go over why I say mostly. SoC is written in third person limited. And the distance of the limited seems very... inconsistent. Sometimes it was a close third person, other times it was distant. Which I get sometimes this is okay, but the difference between how close it could get and how distant it could get was quite jarring. And when the whole reason for the distance is to keep things hidden from the audience, it's very off putting. The distance felt like it was there because Leigh didn't know how else to keep us from knowing all the intricacies of Kaz's schemes, and she needed to be able to pull crazy twists out of everything. It just felt really annoying and cheap to me. Were the reveals entertaining? Sure. Did the way they were done feel very cop out and remind me of that dreaded ending of S&S? Also yes. It is likely this that pulls the book down from a five star to a four star for me.
Other than that, I really loved this story. I'm glad that I read the trilogy first, because although it isn't required to understand SoC, understanding it and already having a connection with this world made it so much more enjoyable. The object desired in this story made sense because of all the knowledge I'd gained in S&B from the teachings Alina had earned, like a natural next step of what could go wrong for the Grisha. And seeing so many cultures that I'd only heard of in S&B got to be filled in and developed, some of which included a background influenced by a civil war I'd been able to see first hand.
SoC had a wonderful cast of snarky, hardened, *different* characters, and I think the different part is very important for a book featuring multiple characters and PoVs. All of them felt like they had a motivation and reason to do what they did. Some a little less than others, but their determinations and motivation became stronger as the story went.
I think Kaz would be my favorite if he wasn't the worst culprit of the inconsistent distance I mentioned above, but because of that distance, I think it's a tie between Inej and Nina, with Kaz like, less than a centimeter behind them. Inej is just a strong, interesting character overall, having to go through horrible things and struggling to adapt to who she is and who she was. Nina I have all kinds of biases toward because of her Ravka connections, but she's also just a very amazing example of what many try to do with a strong female character.
Matthias and his soldier ways and all the teachings vs his own views thing is so fun, and the difficulties that Jesper faces closer to the end has me very excited to see where things will go to him in Crooked Kingdom. Wyland... Feels like he could have had more for him in SoC, but I trust he'll get more love in CK.
I also like how there is obviously some struggles with some neurodiversities, all without actually naming the neurodiversities.
The heist itself is fun and action-packed, while still being very character driven, so it proves an amazing combination of the two.
All in all, so many of the aspects were just hit so right, and if the writing just felt like it wasn't trying so hard to keep things hidden from us for the sake of shock, I could definitely have seen this being a 5 star book.
Either way, I adored this story, I adored the characters, and although underwhelmed by the writing, I can understand why this book is so beloved (especially because of them characters). I'm excited to see where this goes, and where S&B left me disappointed in the grandness of the Grisha world, this book delivers so well on just what the Girshaverse can be. Enough so to ignite the excitement that Alina worked three books trying to douse.
Seriously. How did she create Nikolai, the Darkling, and the SoC stuff, yet also had Alina and Mal poopiness...
