Six of Crows Book Review

Fantasy has become one of my favorite genres recently for so many reasons. I love the ability to escape this world, and dive into a new one, with new rules, new troubles, and new people. I love the ability to study our world through the lens of the fantasy one, how I can compare and contrast and see how the writer was inspired. I love fantasy, and one of the reasons I do is because of Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows. Featuring a ragtag yet lovable group of six, an impossible job, an insane amount of money, and revenge of all sorts, Six of Crows is the perfect read for anyone. It's the book that readers deserve. It's a book that's constantly clever and will surprise you at every turn of the page. If you pick up this book and enter the Grishaverse, you will not be sorry. 

Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author of fantasy novels, her most notable being those involved with the Grishaverse. Those include the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, The Language of Thorns, King of Scars and The Lives of Saints. She's also received critical acclaim for her novel, Ninth House, which, along with some of the Grishaverse books, will be soon coming to TV. If you're interested in more of my reviews of Leigh Bardugo's work, you can find them all here. 

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz's crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first. 

Bardugo's books are wildly popular, and rightfully so. She crafts beautifully complex characters that are fascinating to read and learn about, and her plots are almost too clever to be real. But they are, and it always shocks me how much Six of Crows can surprise me during a reread. But one of the most impressive traits of Six of Crows is the intense world building of Ketterdam, the capital city of the country of Kerch, which is part of the Grishaverse (if you think you'd get confused, don't worry: Bardugo's books come with maps - yes, plural! - in the first few pages). Ketterdam is so richly described that every time readers open the book, they feel as if they are right in the midst of the action with Kaz on the street, Inej on the rooftops, or, when we get to Fjerda, with Matthais in the snow. What's so impressive about the world building is that we are introduced to Ravka in Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, which is a country torn by civil war. We hear a lot about the surrounding countries in Shadow and Bone, so much so that they inspire this whole spin off duology that is Six of Crows. You can read Six of Crows without ever having read Shadow and Bone, but if you have, you'll recognize some familiar faces, settings, and conflicts. Just because Ravka is torn by civil war and is rebuilding right around the events of Six of Crows, doesn't mean that Bardugo shies away from that part of the world. Through the perspective of Nina, we get to see how Ravka is doing in this global and social economy, which is fascinating. Not only does it make readers feel more immersed in the entire world of the Grishaverse, but it gives us perspective about our own world, and the kinds of things our characters are fighting for.  

If you let it, Six of Crows will surprise you. More specifically, Kaz will surprise you. He's absolutely the most interesting character in all of Bardugo's books that I've read so far. He's simultaneously good and evil, and easily the best-written antihero contemporary YA fiction has probably ever seen. He's hellbent on revenge, and will take literally any means necessary to get it - even if that means plotting a scheme that might injure or kill his whole crew. But he also does have a heart, and feelings that he's never really had an opportunity or a means to process. Kaz is fascinating from a reader's perspective, as well as a writer's perspective - even Bardugo admits that it was sometimes difficult and tiring to write Kaz because he was just so clever, even cleverer than her. Kaz and Inej's relationship is also something that readers love to depict in fan-art, have discussions about, and generally is one of the things they're most excited to see on screen. While we are all rooting for Kaz and Inej to get together, there is just something about them we know won't work. At the beginning, Inej kind of hates Kaz for some of the things he says, and how he goads her. As we get further into the book, we see how those moments were almost like friendship, and as a way to talk to one another because they didn't always know how. Inej, in one of her chapters, admits to herself that she wants to be liked by him but also how she wants to leave Ketterdam the second she can. The relationship between Kaz and Inej is so complicated for so many reasons -- Kaz has a history that traumatized him that he won't share with anyone else, which makes it hard for him to be with Inej. Inej really wants Kaz, but she knows what she deserves and she's unwilling to wait to learn more about him, because of her goal to leave and find her own crew. Because Kaz is the most interesting character, and Inej is one of my favorite characters, I find this relationship and dynamic endlessly fascinating, no matter how many times I open the book.

Six of Crows is the kind of book that can consume you. Despite its length (400-500 pages), I found that I'll have been so focused on it that time flies right by. It's an engaging read, and a worthy one. Like Laini Taylor's Strange the Dreamer, this is the kind of book that readers deserve. This is the kind of book that has power: to draw people together, to debate political issues, to study it and see how it works at being so good and successful.

Find yourself in the Grishaverse. It has room for you, and you won't regret it.

*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*