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A review by emeraldrina
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book started out a bit slow with a lot of unnecessary POV from a couple characters who aren’t actually important at all. Once you get past this confusingly lengthy prologue, the story finally picks up. But sadly that’s around halfway through the book. From there, it’s a fun romp and very enjoyable read. I do love the Grishaverse, and the world-building and prose are excellent. However, there were some major issues with characters and pacing that kept throwing me out of the story.
First, the ages of the main characters are nonsensical given their absurdly high skill levels. Until their ages were mentioned (about 60% of the way into the book) I was picturing them all in their late 20s. At that age, they were believable. At 16-18? I was baffled and thrown right out of the story. They somehow all became the best of their specialties and internationally infamous in like 2-4 years?? That’s ridiculous. For the most part they don’t act like teenagers and aren’t treated like teenagers. As far as I can tell the only reason for making them so young was to meet YA expectations. Only in the very last chapter do we see a character viewing them and treating them as they were probably meant to be seen - scrappy and over-ambitious kids who keep escaping disaster by the skin of their teeth due to hidden reservoirs of talent not yet developed. If they had acted and been treated that way the entire book, it would’ve been a lot more believable. And interesting. Unfortunately, they were all made a bit OP, which resulted in their near escapes being a lot less exciting and nail-boring than they could have been.
Second, I found the MANY and constantly changing POVs to be disorientating. Right when I finally got into a character’s head, the chapter and POV would change. It made me not want to keep reading even when I was invested in the story. There were even several whole chapters from the PoV of side characters, which was both confusing and unnecessary. Though I did enjoy Pekka’s chapter. But the ones at the beginning were boring and spent too much time getting me interested in a romance that got annihilated a few pages later. Frankly if the entire book alternated between Kaz and Nina it would’ve been a lot better. They were the only two whose thoughts I cared about.
Those issues aside, the world is wonderful, the plot is fun, and the writing style is very smooth and easy to read. The first third of the book is 2 stars, the latter two-thirds is 4, so I’ll average it out to 3.5 stars overall. Despite my qualms, I will definitely read the next book as well!
First, the ages of the main characters are nonsensical given their absurdly high skill levels. Until their ages were mentioned (about 60% of the way into the book) I was picturing them all in their late 20s. At that age, they were believable. At 16-18? I was baffled and thrown right out of the story. They somehow all became the best of their specialties and internationally infamous in like 2-4 years?? That’s ridiculous. For the most part they don’t act like teenagers and aren’t treated like teenagers. As far as I can tell the only reason for making them so young was to meet YA expectations. Only in the very last chapter do we see a character viewing them and treating them as they were probably meant to be seen - scrappy and over-ambitious kids who keep escaping disaster by the skin of their teeth due to hidden reservoirs of talent not yet developed. If they had acted and been treated that way the entire book, it would’ve been a lot more believable. And interesting. Unfortunately, they were all made a bit OP, which resulted in their near escapes being a lot less exciting and nail-boring than they could have been.
Second, I found the MANY and constantly changing POVs to be disorientating. Right when I finally got into a character’s head, the chapter and POV would change. It made me not want to keep reading even when I was invested in the story. There were even several whole chapters from the PoV of side characters, which was both confusing and unnecessary. Though I did enjoy Pekka’s chapter. But the ones at the beginning were boring and spent too much time getting me interested in a romance that got annihilated a few pages later. Frankly if the entire book alternated between Kaz and Nina it would’ve been a lot better. They were the only two whose thoughts I cared about.
Those issues aside, the world is wonderful, the plot is fun, and the writing style is very smooth and easy to read. The first third of the book is 2 stars, the latter two-thirds is 4, so I’ll average it out to 3.5 stars overall. Despite my qualms, I will definitely read the next book as well!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual assault, Trafficking, and Sexual harassment