(Six of Crows #1)
Publication
Date: September 29, 2015
Hardcover, 465 pages, Henry Holt and Co.
Genres:
YA, Fantasy
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.
