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Crooked Kingdom is the end of the Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo.
Welcome to the world of the Grisha.
Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.
Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.
A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.
Ugh, this is complicated. I'm... I'm going to say 3.5 stars, so round up to 4 stars, but, like... Let's just get into it.
First, and this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do feel like overall I liked this book more than I did Six of Crows. SoC I may like the plot more, but come CK, we have most of everything established, so we can skip all the set up and just experience this story with the characters. It was also in a contained space we already knew for the most part, so less expanding. So all in all, things were established, and we got to focus a bit more than we did in SoC, and I really enjoyed that.
Moving on from a heist to a group against a city was also just great. There was always this sense of tension while also excitement to see how the gang was going to manage everything, because come on, we knew things were going to end well for them. We just didn't know how. Characters also continued to grow stronger as their bonds continued and some discovered more of where they wanted to go in the story. Wylan's change in particular was my favorite, because he was really lacking in motivation overall, and this book gave it. I hadn't been all that sold on Wylan because of that lacking, but as we got more of his PoV and more drive for him, he became a very beloved character for me. Plus, like, just still over here loving the neurodiversity rep and that that isn't some grand old weakness one cannot overcome.
On the flip side, getting to delve deeper into Jesper's Grisha heritage was just *chefskiss* Yes, please, give me all of it.
Nina's battle after parem and its odd affects have me *extremely* excited for KoS because I so badly hope to see that further expanded. It seems there is a huge potential change in the way of the Grisha, and I *need* to see more that explores.
Inej is Inej, which means pure amazingness.
Whereas all of these were the anti-heroes moving more toward being heroes... We then have Kaz. Who part of me is happy to see is allowed to just be a gang lord, but also... I would die to see more of him after this book. Like, more of his growth, because there is just so much potential of who he could be. And I want to know if he ever does go that way or not.
That said... I'm really happy how Kanej ended up. It felt perfect for who each of them are. It was the most organic option for the two of them.
Matthias is an adorakable oaf who deserves all the hugs.
Really, it's hard to focus on much more than all of this, because plot involves spoilers, and so much of what truly drives the love for this series is the characters xD And I'm just so happy with all of them that it's just like... I want to gush, but I can't, because *most* of this review is going to be as spoiler free as possible.
So if I loved the plot and characters so much, why 3.5?
Well, for one, Bardugo's writing had the same issues for me as SoC. Quite simply, Bardugo is too focused on making us gasp. She puts an inorganic amount of distance between us and the PoV characters just to keep things hidden, but when it comes to emotion, she's all for being close, and that zoom in and zoom out at her own convenience is just... No, it's bad writing, mostly because it's used to keep us in the dark of things. She did do better in a few cases (primarily the plot at the beginning). But honestly, it got to the point that if we saw something bad happen and didn't instantly get Kaz's reaction, I *knew* this was all secretly part of Kaz's plan, but we weren't able to see it because Bardugo was doing her whole "*rubs hands together cackling* They'll never see this coming" thing. Also, there is a scene where Kaz himself apparently leaves something behind in a place, and we are in his PoV, BUT THERE IS NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER HE HAD DONE THIS. Like, no, that isn't how PoV works. I feel lied to and cheated every time our view of a situation is suddenly retconned.
It would have all been solved with just a bit of foreshadowing and building up. You can be vague while in PoVs, but outright neglect is just not how it works. And it always made things quite frustrating when Kaz basically deus ex machina-ed out of things in a way that everyone else in the crew knew about but somehow we had never gotten a hint of it, despite always being in the crews' PoVs.
That wasn't my only issue though. There is a character death in this book. It may be a major character, it may be a secondary one introduced in this book. Either way, it's a character this book sets out to make you care about. And just... The death literally happens out of nowhere. Things are starting to wind down, and suddenly bam, this person is dead... Because I guess things were going too well? Because it set something up for the sequel series? I don't know, but it was utterly, frustratingly stupid. It served no purpose in *this* story, and the reaction we get around the death feels so subpar because its done so close to the end I feel like Bardugo had to rush the impact.
It's stupid. I hate it. It made no sense from an overarching story standpoint. It honestly made me want to throw the book.
I already knew that Bardugo did pretty badly with deaths after the ending of R&R, but I hoped she'd have figured it out for this one. I just... Come *on.*
I'm sorry. It irritated the crap outta me.
But yes, for the most part, I really enjoyed this story, and the SoC duology is leagues better than the Grishaverse Trilogy, but it seems some of her weaknesses still carried over from it. Just thankfully not the weakness that was Mal and Alina.
