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ndeniseg105's review against another edition
3.0
I don't typically like YA fantasy, but this one was good! Extremely well written, probably the most well written YA book i've read in a loooong time. I just wasn't feeling the romances in this book. If you like this genre you will probably LOVE six of crows. I might update this review once I read book two if it makes me feel different about the story as a whole. :)
princessrobotiv's review against another edition
5.0
4.5
--
S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G
I'm honestly staggered by the rise in quality when compared to the Grisha Trilogy. And unlike a lot of people, I actually liked a lot of what was done in those books.
But man, Six of Crows straight tramples its predecessors into the dust - particularly where character backstory and development is concerned.
The plot - the heist - was only the axis around which our characters spun. Though well-constructed, it was not the be-all-or-end-all focal point of the novel. And as heists go, it was actually pretty slow and light on the dramatic "gotcha!" moments of in-your-face cleverness.
The real crux of the story is its characters, and boy do we have a cast of absolute stars.
I just . . . Loved them? I loved every single one of them. They are So Good.
In Kaz Brekker we see the archetypical amoral trickster humanized and given a truly admirable level of depth. Characters like Kaz can so easily become caricatures. They are set up as the most powerful, the most mythic; they are the wiliest, the deadliest,the sexiest. The authors build up this bastion of badassery and then shrink from having them bested, having them brought low, in apparent fear that this will somehow cancel out the work they've done creating their beautiful monster. The contradictory result is that the characters cease to be interesting.
Kaz Brekker takes his cane and breaks the jaw of his own archetype.
There are two things that really cemented Kaz's character design as something extraordinary: His disability, and the trauma that left him chronically touch-repulsed.
Both of these things were handled with such unflinching commitment - in no situation did Bardugo minimize the existence of Kaz's disability, and in no situation did we see his disability sideline him. That balance is not one that is easily or often struck.
Likewise, his inability to touch was not magically cured by a single smoldering look by his love interest. Eight BILLION stars for this one!! ☀★☀
Inej Ghafa is Lila Bard absent all the troubling anti-feminine subtext, and I am HERE for her. She's such a breath of fresh air in a genre that elevates and promotes (toxic) masculine qualities in female protagonists, presumably as a way to "rebel" against the once-prevalent media representation of women as docile, submissive, and sacrificing.
Inej is skilled, cunning, cerebral, and deadly. She is also empathetic, morally-centered, and spiritual. These do NOT contradict! And because they don't contradict, we get this vibrant character balancing her love and loyalty to the boy who saved her from sexual slavery against her own desire for a level of respect, intimacy, and freedom that he will - as of the end of this book - never be able to provide her.
More broadly, Inej's story is one with heavy critiques on the exotification and commodification of non-white bodies. Her identity as the Roma/Sinti/Middle-Eastern-coded "Suli" is inextricable from her narrative; she is kidnapped and sold into slavery to serve as fetish-fodder at a pleasure house in Ketterdam.
Even after "escaping" from the House of Exotics and becoming a dangerous spy and assassin, Inej experiences serious episodes of PTSD whenever she's faced with memories of her time as a slave. These moments of petrified inaction are so authentic, and they only make her confrontation with Tante Heleen more satisfying when it comes.
I also can't thank Djel enough that Bardugo never gave us any graphic or graphic-adjacent description of Inej's rape(s) at the House of Exotics. If you're doing the job right, the trauma is graphic enough without any of that - and in this case, the work was done right.
Also, excuse me while I fucking sob over the Kanej ship centering around two kids traumatized in different ways by flesh/touch. Extra knives to the heart for the fact that it isn't the rape survivor who's touch-averse. Throw me into the Ice Moat; I'm already drowning in these two anyway.
Nina Zenik is bold, exuberant, gentle, and diplomatic. She's loyal to her country and to Grisha regardless of nationality.
After an entire trilogy centered around Grisha, I thought that I would find her the least interesting of the bunch. But this isn't the case at all, and it's because Bardugo balanced the extroversion of Nina's character with a soldier's dedication.
Nina's conflict isn't just centered around her contradictory love for Matthias; rather, it's centered around the hard choices she had to make - the betrayals she had to commit - in order to save her people. And Nina levels with her own actions with the charming aplomb typical of her character; she grieves and she struggles to make things right, but at the end of the day, she doesn't apologize. What a goddamn champ.
I am so psyched to see what her character arc holds in the next book, especially after her martyr's actions at the end of this one. Bardugo has a track record now of handling sensitive topics well, and I've no doubt that she'll bring something really interesting to the table for the "addiction" topic.
Matthias Helvar began with a major side-eye from yours truly.
I mean, we're introduced to this man who allowed himself to become a weapon of prejudice and torture, a man who we are then expected to sympathize with and even ship with Nina - or if not ship, at least understand how Nina could have fallen in love with such a person. Not an easy thing to pull off, particularly for those of us who feel - on a visceral level - the parallels between the drüskelle and real life hate groups existing and thriving in our countries. It's very uncomfortable to give Matthias the benefit of the doubt.
Yet, once again, Bardugo demonstrates exemplary character development. I thawed to Matthias bit by bit, initially off-put by his "She's a witch/inhuman monstrosity but I desire her" conflict. But Nina's judgment of Matthias - that he is at heart a gentle man, indoctrinated into violence and hatred by a propagandist government, proves true in dozens of little moments throughout the book. When Matthias finally shows down with his previous mentor, Brum, I as a reader was completely prepared for and appreciative of his penultimate line:
Jesper Fahey was more developed than Wylan, and the glimpses we caught of his POV and his internal struggle with gambling addiction (and his understated but very apparent crush on Kaz) were incredibly interesting. Jesper's a great character, but I felt like he was sidelined a bit in favor Kaz, Inej, Nina, and Matthias. At least in this installment, anyway. The bits of conflict we see arising towards the last fourth of the book - as Jesper reveals he's Grisha and begins to question whether he wants to explore that portion of himself - weren't introduced early enough to receive as much development as the other conflicts we see.
Likewise for Wylan Van Eck - he was a fun character, but without his POV, it was hard to get into his head. This was probably self-serving for the plot, as the showdown with Van Eck was predicated on the reader's lack of knowledge with respect to the Van Eck father/son dynamic. However, I really wish we had gotten a few chapters at least. I'm hoping this is to come in Crooked Kingdom!
And okay, last point I'll make here and my second (I lied) complaint: I hate the name Pekka Rollins. Absolutely despise it. I can't take this dude seriously with a name like that.
--
S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G
I'm honestly staggered by the rise in quality when compared to the Grisha Trilogy. And unlike a lot of people, I actually liked a lot of what was done in those books.
But man, Six of Crows straight tramples its predecessors into the dust - particularly where character backstory and development is concerned.
The plot - the heist - was only the axis around which our characters spun. Though well-constructed, it was not the be-all-or-end-all focal point of the novel. And as heists go, it was actually pretty slow and light on the dramatic "gotcha!" moments of in-your-face cleverness.
The real crux of the story is its characters, and boy do we have a cast of absolute stars.
I just . . . Loved them? I loved every single one of them. They are So Good.
In Kaz Brekker we see the archetypical amoral trickster humanized and given a truly admirable level of depth. Characters like Kaz can so easily become caricatures. They are set up as the most powerful, the most mythic; they are the wiliest, the deadliest,
Kaz Brekker takes his cane and breaks the jaw of his own archetype.
There are two things that really cemented Kaz's character design as something extraordinary: His disability, and the trauma that left him chronically touch-repulsed.
Both of these things were handled with such unflinching commitment - in no situation did Bardugo minimize the existence of Kaz's disability, and in no situation did we see his disability sideline him. That balance is not one that is easily or often struck.
Likewise, his inability to touch was not magically cured by a single smoldering look by his love interest. Eight BILLION stars for this one!! ☀★☀
Inej Ghafa is Lila Bard absent all the troubling anti-feminine subtext, and I am HERE for her. She's such a breath of fresh air in a genre that elevates and promotes (toxic) masculine qualities in female protagonists, presumably as a way to "rebel" against the once-prevalent media representation of women as docile, submissive, and sacrificing.
Inej is skilled, cunning, cerebral, and deadly. She is also empathetic, morally-centered, and spiritual. These do NOT contradict! And because they don't contradict, we get this vibrant character balancing her love and loyalty to the boy who saved her from sexual slavery against her own desire for a level of respect, intimacy, and freedom that he will - as of the end of this book - never be able to provide her.
More broadly, Inej's story is one with heavy critiques on the exotification and commodification of non-white bodies. Her identity as the Roma/Sinti/Middle-Eastern-coded "Suli" is inextricable from her narrative; she is kidnapped and sold into slavery to serve as fetish-fodder at a pleasure house in Ketterdam.
Even after "escaping" from the House of Exotics and becoming a dangerous spy and assassin, Inej experiences serious episodes of PTSD whenever she's faced with memories of her time as a slave. These moments of petrified inaction are so authentic, and they only make her confrontation with Tante Heleen more satisfying when it comes.
I also can't thank Djel enough that Bardugo never gave us any graphic or graphic-adjacent description of Inej's rape(s) at the House of Exotics. If you're doing the job right, the trauma is graphic enough without any of that - and in this case, the work was done right.
Also, excuse me while I fucking sob over the Kanej ship centering around two kids traumatized in different ways by flesh/touch. Extra knives to the heart for the fact that it isn't the rape survivor who's touch-averse. Throw me into the Ice Moat; I'm already drowning in these two anyway.
Nina Zenik is bold, exuberant, gentle, and diplomatic. She's loyal to her country and to Grisha regardless of nationality.
After an entire trilogy centered around Grisha, I thought that I would find her the least interesting of the bunch. But this isn't the case at all, and it's because Bardugo balanced the extroversion of Nina's character with a soldier's dedication.
Nina's conflict isn't just centered around her contradictory love for Matthias; rather, it's centered around the hard choices she had to make - the betrayals she had to commit - in order to save her people. And Nina levels with her own actions with the charming aplomb typical of her character; she grieves and she struggles to make things right, but at the end of the day, she doesn't apologize. What a goddamn champ.
I am so psyched to see what her character arc holds in the next book, especially after her martyr's actions at the end of this one. Bardugo has a track record now of handling sensitive topics well, and I've no doubt that she'll bring something really interesting to the table for the "addiction" topic.
Matthias Helvar began with a major side-eye from yours truly.
I mean, we're introduced to this man who allowed himself to become a weapon of prejudice and torture, a man who we are then expected to sympathize with and even ship with Nina - or if not ship, at least understand how Nina could have fallen in love with such a person. Not an easy thing to pull off, particularly for those of us who feel - on a visceral level - the parallels between the drüskelle and real life hate groups existing and thriving in our countries. It's very uncomfortable to give Matthias the benefit of the doubt.
Yet, once again, Bardugo demonstrates exemplary character development. I thawed to Matthias bit by bit, initially off-put by his "She's a witch/inhuman monstrosity but I desire her" conflict. But Nina's judgment of Matthias - that he is at heart a gentle man, indoctrinated into violence and hatred by a propagandist government, proves true in dozens of little moments throughout the book. When Matthias finally shows down with his previous mentor, Brum, I as a reader was completely prepared for and appreciative of his penultimate line:
"The life you live, the hate you feel -- it's poison. I can drink it no longer."My one complaint is that I really can't go into the same level of detail about Jesper or Wylan.
Jesper Fahey was more developed than Wylan, and the glimpses we caught of his POV and his internal struggle with gambling addiction (and his understated but very apparent crush on Kaz) were incredibly interesting. Jesper's a great character, but I felt like he was sidelined a bit in favor Kaz, Inej, Nina, and Matthias. At least in this installment, anyway. The bits of conflict we see arising towards the last fourth of the book - as Jesper reveals he's Grisha and begins to question whether he wants to explore that portion of himself - weren't introduced early enough to receive as much development as the other conflicts we see.
Likewise for Wylan Van Eck - he was a fun character, but without his POV, it was hard to get into his head. This was probably self-serving for the plot, as the showdown with Van Eck was predicated on the reader's lack of knowledge with respect to the Van Eck father/son dynamic. However, I really wish we had gotten a few chapters at least. I'm hoping this is to come in Crooked Kingdom!
And okay, last point I'll make here and my second (I lied) complaint: I hate the name Pekka Rollins. Absolutely despise it. I can't take this dude seriously with a name like that.
whatsastory's review against another edition
This book had action, intrigue, and romantic tension in spades. It was the sort of over-the-top adventure that made me happy to click on the "suspension of belief" switch in my brain and just go along for the ride. It's been a long time since I read something with pacing this good.
The one thing I was most nervous about going into this book was the romance. I've fallen out of love with YA romances in a big way lately. Thankfully, Six of Crows was a pleasant surprise. You might not be rooting for every romance in the book, but at the very least they're well-written with regards to each character's backstory and their existing history. And who said every romance has to be perfect anyway?
Great characters, A+ world-building, and lots of twists: there's a lot of reasons I enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.
The one thing I was most nervous about going into this book was the romance. I've fallen out of love with YA romances in a big way lately. Thankfully, Six of Crows was a pleasant surprise. You might not be rooting for every romance in the book, but at the very least they're well-written with regards to each character's backstory and their existing history. And who said every romance has to be perfect anyway?
Great characters, A+ world-building, and lots of twists: there's a lot of reasons I enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.
lenairaheta's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
lucyreadsss's review against another edition
5.0
OMG THIS BOOK WAS SOOOO GOOD! I managed to read it pretty quickly (for me) because I just couldn’t put this book down it was that good.
Ketterdam is a hectic place full of international trade where anything can be had for the right price and the criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker knows that best. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him richer than his wildest dreams. But he will need the right crew to accomplish it and it won’t be an easy job.
But anyway, the characters were so great there wasn’t any of the crows that I didn’t like. I thought the relationships between characters was effective. Also I really enjoyed learning a bit about the back stories of the characters, I found them really interesting and well written. The character development was also very effective as I could see how the experiences that they went through shaped their personalities and beliefs.
Another thing I really liked about this book was the multiple POVs. I thought it was a great way to see how different characters interpreted occurrences and a successful way to show their thoughts and feelings.
As well as, the book was quite fast paced. This means there was always an exciting event taking place or an engrossing conversation happening that just kept me wanting to read more and more and not put the book down.
I gave the book a five star rating as I enjoyed it so much it’s hard to put into words and I’m very much looking forward to reading the next book in the duology.
Ketterdam is a hectic place full of international trade where anything can be had for the right price and the criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker knows that best. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him richer than his wildest dreams. But he will need the right crew to accomplish it and it won’t be an easy job.
But anyway, the characters were so great there wasn’t any of the crows that I didn’t like. I thought the relationships between characters was effective. Also I really enjoyed learning a bit about the back stories of the characters, I found them really interesting and well written. The character development was also very effective as I could see how the experiences that they went through shaped their personalities and beliefs.
Another thing I really liked about this book was the multiple POVs. I thought it was a great way to see how different characters interpreted occurrences and a successful way to show their thoughts and feelings.
As well as, the book was quite fast paced. This means there was always an exciting event taking place or an engrossing conversation happening that just kept me wanting to read more and more and not put the book down.
I gave the book a five star rating as I enjoyed it so much it’s hard to put into words and I’m very much looking forward to reading the next book in the duology.
liberty_grady's review against another edition
5.0
Worst way to explain Six of Crows:
There are no crows... Instead, six rug rats who kill anyone of minor inconvenience yet seem to always escape death themselves in the name of gambling problems, daddy issues, waffles, wolves, sankta Alina, and protecting investments....
- A dear friend of mine
Ughhh this series is so good though. Highly recommend. 100000/10
There are no crows... Instead, six rug rats who kill anyone of minor inconvenience yet seem to always escape death themselves in the name of gambling problems, daddy issues, waffles, wolves, sankta Alina, and protecting investments....
- A dear friend of mine
Ughhh this series is so good though. Highly recommend. 100000/10
malenagomez's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
whykimwhenyoucanseokjin's review against another edition
5.0
This book is one of the best things I've ever read to date, the characters make you fall head over heals for all of them, and I love the dynamic between all of them. It is also the first book I have ever bought (in my life , sad) and I felt so proud of myself for finally buying a book that I can take home without worrying about the Library return date, and even tho I struggled for the rest of the month because I had less money then I usually do, I still don't regret it one bit because just by looking at it I feel extreme happiness and joy.