A review by imaginary_space
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I was told this was not really YA, but I guess it still was too much YA for me. That's not the book's fault, though. So if you generally like YA, I suspect you will like this book a lot more than I did.

What I liked:
  • The world building - European inspired, plus a fantasy story set (mainly) in a big city, that's a nice diversion from the majority of books in the genre. If you know any more books, don't hesitate to point me in their direction!
  • Also, I liked the Grisha magic.
  • I like stories about ragtag bands/found families doing things (okay, crime) together.
  • It was so well written that I found the plot interesting and wanted to know not so much what would happen next, but how it would happen.
  • I started to appreciate Inej and Kaz once I stopped thinking about their age and just embraced how utterly, unapologetically edgy they are. Teenage me would have probably loved them.
  • Jesper is quite the cinnamon roll, and I enjoyed him as a character. He was the most believable and most interesting (and layered) of the bunch.
  • There was some entertaining dialogue.

What was meh:
  • Even though interestingly written, the plot didn't hold any major surprises.
  • Nina and Matthias were annoying, even more so because there wasn't ever any real doubt about the outcome. Also, very tropey romance story.
  • Yes, growing up in a slum ages people beyond their years. Sure, I get that. But at times it was just too unbelievable, especially with the way they talked sometimes.
  • Even more unbelievable that Kaz managed to have this badass mysterious reputation for being a criminal genius when apparently every other major player in that city was an adult. I would have gotten it if the gang members in the slums were all roughly about the same age. But like this it makes very little sense.
  • Towards the end, I was pretty annoyed by the twentieth "... BUT they had seen it coming!" surprise. Especially since there was very few foreshadowing.
  • There was some pretentious edgy dialogue. It's a fine line.

Overall, I wasn't too emotionally engaged, but I did enjoy it enough to probably read the second book in the series.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings