Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo

(Six of Crows #1)

Publication Date: September 29, 2015

Hardcover, 465 pages, Henry Holt and Co.

Genres: YA, Fantasy

Book Depository | Amazon | Goodreads

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 are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.

My Review

I hadn’t read a Leigh Bardugo book in what seemed like forever, so I decided it was finally time to pick up Six of Crows, and, with all of the hype going on, I—brace yourselves—didn’t love it.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. It was an enjoyable read. I simply think there was too much hype surrounding the story and characters. Additionally, I’ve heard from a lot of internet peeps that this book is better than the Grisha trilogy. I did not think that at all. I guess I’m a sucker for the typical fantasy trope story, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

So this story has a lot of main charactes. There’s Kaz, who’s an interesting conman with a mysterious and tragic backstory; Inej, who also has a tragic backstory and is like a young, female version of Batman; Nina, who is the heartrender/soldier; Matthias, the escaped convict with an attitude problem; Jesper, the gambling addict; and Wylan, the guy we rarely hear about. See what I mean? A lot of characters.

Okay, let me break down which characters I thought were more likable. Kaz is too show-offy. While I like a good heist story (I’m thinking White Collar here), it does get annoying when the MC is prepared for almost every plot twist. As for Inej, her development into a character who is going to fight for something was probably the best growth of the book. Now, Matthias and Nina were two of my favorite characters in this story. I feel like I could have just read a book about them and it would have been soooooo much better.

Moving on now to the typical fantasy trope thing I mentioned earlier. I like it when we get the girl/boy who fights the evil baddie/becomes royal/goes on an adventure. That’s probably because I’ve been reading a lot of those and binge-ing myself on first-person female narratives. This heist story just didn’t mesh with how I, personally, like the plots of my books to go. I want a 1, 2, 3, linear story, and this had a 1, 2, 3 linear story told from six perspectives with so much craziness thrown in.

Also, towards the beginning, it was kind of hard to even get into the world and remember what had happened from the Grisha books. Furthermore, the tone didn’t help because it was very dry for the beginning chapters. I do have to say, however, that things got much easier to follow along with and I became 90% more invested in the characters once the actual heist started to pick up.

All in all, if you’re looking for a continuation of the Grisha trilogy, definitely reconsider picking up Six of Crows right away. It needs some time to digest both before and during its consumption, and book lovers should read the original series before starting this one, simply for clarity’s sake.

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself. This in no way affected my opinion/review.