Scan barcode
A review by paularize
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
5.0
I wish I could write something smart and coherent but this book simply makes me want to scream.
Actually no, you just get the incoherent version instead:
This book? This book??? Listen, okay. I read this book for the first time a few years ago and i've been chasing the high of that ending ever since without finding it again. It's gotten to the point where i kind of prefer stand-alones because going through one or more sequels for a mediocre ending just doesn't appeal to me that much anymore (or maybe I'm just scarred by some movie series. yknow.)
But this book/duology constantly reminds why a) series are fun b) I read c) stories are amazing d) found family when well executed is the best goddam trope.
In Six of Crows you get handed the characters, you get told, here's who they are and what they can do. You watch them make the plan to rob the most secure place in the world and then they do exactly that (with some difficulties but overall yeah).
In Crooked Kingdom you see who they could be and how they get there. Things go wrong and they're messy and they're difficult. Every time I reread this book i'm amazed at how much happens because they constantly have to reevaluate their plans to make it work and they fight their way out together because that's what they do.
Sometimes I stop and think about all the character development and I want to cry or scream in a forest, or preferably both.
It's about Nina and Matthias overcoming their cultural disputes, it's about Kaz and Jesper beating each other up like brothers but never intending to go too far, Inej asking Kaz about his tell AND HIM THINKING ABOUT HER ISTG, it's about Wylan learning that it's okay if you can't do something and Jesper realizing it's okay to ask for help. It's about failing over and over and getting up again because if you couldn't open a door, you just had to make a new one. If you can't beat the odds, change the game.
Back to the ending!! I love the ending so much (despite, you know) because it's just the right amount of open-end while at the same time being positively optimistic. Also it has the crows speech (and SAB TV SPOILERS I'm kind of pissed they used that up already in S1 but oh well SPOILERS END) and it has Kaz buying Inej a ship and going no thoughts, head empty when she laughs which, mood. Anyways, i hope you enjoyed this ride with me, it certainly has been fun to look at my gr feed the past few weeks and literally only see SoC updates because apparently we're a hive mind.
"But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. (...) When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway."
Actually no, you just get the incoherent version instead:
But this book/duology constantly reminds why a) series are fun b) I read c) stories are amazing d) found family when well executed is the best goddam trope.
In Six of Crows you get handed the characters, you get told, here's who they are and what they can do. You watch them make the plan to rob the most secure place in the world and then they do exactly that (with some difficulties but overall yeah).
In Crooked Kingdom you see who they could be and how they get there. Things go wrong and they're messy and they're difficult. Every time I reread this book i'm amazed at how much happens because they constantly have to reevaluate their plans to make it work and they fight their way out together because that's what they do.
Sometimes I stop and think about all the character development and I want to cry or scream in a forest, or preferably both.
It's about Nina and Matthias overcoming their cultural disputes, it's about Kaz and Jesper beating each other up like brothers but never intending to go too far, Inej asking Kaz about his tell AND HIM THINKING ABOUT HER ISTG, it's about Wylan learning that it's okay if you can't do something and Jesper realizing it's okay to ask for help. It's about failing over and over and getting up again because if you couldn't open a door, you just had to make a new one. If you can't beat the odds, change the game.
Back to the ending!! I love the ending so much (despite, you know) because it's just the right amount of open-end while at the same time being positively optimistic. Also it has the crows speech (and SAB TV SPOILERS I'm kind of pissed they used that up already in S1 but oh well SPOILERS END) and it has Kaz buying Inej a ship and going no thoughts, head empty when she laughs which, mood. Anyways, i hope you enjoyed this ride with me, it certainly has been fun to look at my gr feed the past few weeks and literally only see SoC updates because apparently we're a hive mind.
"But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. (...) When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway."