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A review by linkalipski
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
When I started the book, I find it quite hard to understand who is who and what is going on during about a third of the book. Mostly that’s down to not enough physical descriptions and the use of several names for one character (eg, first name, last name and nickname). Therefore, it was a little difficult to get into it.
I was also not enthralled by the story because of the money as sole motivation at first. But once the heist got going, I found the story captivating and I liked their personal stories too. That took quite a long time so I’d say the book is a slow burner.
Every character is distinctively unique but that is not reflected in dialogue as they all speak similarly. Worse, despite being teenagers from the street, they somehow all know and use upper class vocabulary from the past centuries, which doesn’t match their characteristics. As teenagers from non-academic backgrounds, there is no reason for them to know so many posh words. Even I don’t know so many and I’m a thirty-something-year-old avid reader. That aspect is something that bothered me greatly and pulled me out of the story repeatedly. The posh adult talk would have made sense if the characters were in their late twenties or not from the streets.
Ending was a disappointment for me: it’s a cliff hanger but feels like it was stopped right in the middle rather than concluding this story and creating an open end to a sequel. Perhaps a better ending would have been to stop at penultimate chapter or add a small chapter with Kaz, who is reflecting on what is over (closure-satisfying ending) and what he is brewing (announcing sequel).
All in all, it was not necessarily a book for me but I did get attached to the character and I do want to know what happens to them next. So I had a good time once I was in it. It’d be a great show or movie too.
I was also not enthralled by the story because of the money as sole motivation at first. But once the heist got going, I found the story captivating and I liked their personal stories too. That took quite a long time so I’d say the book is a slow burner.
Every character is distinctively unique but that is not reflected in dialogue as they all speak similarly. Worse, despite being teenagers from the street, they somehow all know and use upper class vocabulary from the past centuries, which doesn’t match their characteristics. As teenagers from non-academic backgrounds, there is no reason for them to know so many posh words. Even I don’t know so many and I’m a thirty-something-year-old avid reader. That aspect is something that bothered me greatly and pulled me out of the story repeatedly. The posh adult talk would have made sense if the characters were in their late twenties or not from the streets.
Ending was a disappointment for me: it’s a cliff hanger but feels like it was stopped right in the middle rather than concluding this story and creating an open end to a sequel. Perhaps a better ending would have been to stop at penultimate chapter or add a small chapter with Kaz, who is reflecting on what is over (closure-satisfying ending) and what he is brewing (announcing sequel).
All in all, it was not necessarily a book for me but I did get attached to the character and I do want to know what happens to them next. So I had a good time once I was in it. It’d be a great show or movie too.