A review by leona
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was supremely better than the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and Bardugo's growth as a writer is very clear. Despite my hatred for pretty much all of the characters in her previous work, (other than Nikolai), I think the character work was excellent here. I was recommended this book by a friend, but I tried the first few chapters and didn't understand anything that was going on, hence I decided to read Shadow and Bone first. I would recommend reading the trilogy first, however I don't think you need to. (To be honest, I didn't really try that hard to get into the book when I first started reading it.) Also you will see some mentions and cameo's of a few of the characters, but Six of Crows is very much separate and it's own entity. I think the first two or three Chapters are a bit confusing and draggy, but once the characters start to become more developed, the book is brilliant. 

The plot was better than the previous books in my opinion, but I also thought it just felt a bit too long. I think this book was a lot stronger in its character work than its plot. The heist was interesting and I don't think I ever really found myself bored, it just felt like there was something missing to me, despite all of the characters having their moment to shine and show their abilities. The world building I think was pretty excellent, seeing a completely different side to the Grishaverse, the dirty, crime-ridden streets of Ketterdam. Bardugo really managed to create an atmosphere with this darker setting. 

I've already mentioned the characters a couple of times but here I will go into some more detail. The characters we follow are very much morally grey and even anti-heroes. They are criminals doing something pretty good that will hopefully benefit the world, but for all the wrong reasons *cough* money *cough*. A lot of people disliked Inej, but I actually really liked her for the majority of the book. I have to say 'that' scene
about Kaz's armour or some shiz
did p*ss me off quite a bit though, because
Kaz is clearly a deeply traumatized character. Inej had been concerned for him in the prisoner wagon when he feinted, and bringing his gloves back for him, but then completely turned on him? I was just confused.
I didn't really care about Nina, Matthias and Jesper that much at the start but Jesper did grow on me. Him and Wylan are hilarious. Matthias really annoyed me throughout the whole book but
I think his redemption was good enough for me, I sort of trust him now.
There are lot of character backstory moments in the book (maybe like a fifth of the book is backstory), which I'm not the hugest fan of, but I do think I got used to it eventually and it really helped to develop the characters a lot better. Especially considering that was one of my major problems with Alina and Mal in Shadow and Bone, there wasn't enough backstory for me to actually root for them. Anyway Kaz is definitely the most morally grey character, because his main motivations seem to be revenge and money for the majority of the book. Also he does murder a couple of people. 

Yep, this book is quite dark if you haven't gathered that already. I would say it is on the upper end of YA and there were a couple of gory moments which did shock me a bit at first because I'm not really good with that type of stuff but it wasn't too bad once I got used to it. The worst moment was (not a major spoiler)
a short paragraph in which someone is maimed with an X slit across their face, and then their eye is clawed out. The person is then tipped over the side of the boat.
I think it is almost YA grimdark, but others would disagree. I'm not an expert on fantasy sub-genres. Also it was just quite weird that the characters were teenagers. I understand this was an effort for the book  to stay YA, but the intelligence of these characters is crazy. I'm slightly younger than them and could never imagine plotting a heist. To be fair, I got used to it and this is definitely not a reason not to read it. Romance was also pretty minimal in this book, these are some of the most slow burn romances I have read. I did really appreciate this in comparison to how Alina latched on to dudes in Shadow and Bone (honestly there was practically a love square in that trilogy), but I do think that a more present romance could have made the book a bit more interesting in some of its slower parts. Anyway I loved the characters, even with their moral greyness.

To conclude, I rate it 5 stars, as I absolutely loved this book despite my complaints. It is really very character driven, gritty (for YA anyway) and I would definitely recommend giving it  a chance even if you are a bit put off by the social media hype or from hating Shadow and Bone. 
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