Six of Crows

I wasn't aware this was YA when I started, and had I known that, I wouldn't have given it another glance...largely because YA is written for people who like YA, a group to which I do not belong. How do you criticise a genre for lacking in areas that it simply doesn't care about? It wouldn't be fair to complain about all the teen angst and melodramatic one-liners when that's the point. So I'll focus on the literary basics:

Leigh Bardugo writes bad action. She writes Hollywood action. The characters are wrapped in plot armour and the enemy pawns are utterly dyspraxic, fragile stick figures. Slow, cinematic attention is afforded to the protagonist's feats of combative excellence that they unleash upon their unwitting foes. In her world, physical fights are determined by how stern one's resolve is and how lumbering, brutish and bovine the enemy is, not on any realistic measure of...anything. What's worse, these slim-fingered teenagers and waifish girls are masterminds of athletic skill, reaching their apotheosis at tender seventeen...

Far be it for me to criticise a mainstay of YA fiction, but if your cast of characters have a median age of sixteen and a half, surely they some similar emotional and mental semblance to their age? I had to age up Bardugo's cast by about 6 years each just to inject some credibility into the story. Kaz was perhaps the most guilty of being a “just...one...more...gimmick” type character, as if he was written for a play-by-post forum RPG. I have no clue how he found all the time to gather all those personal quirks and perfect all those skills by 17, but colour me impressed.

The worldbuilding was lacklustre. I wanted to make a concession here: a deeply complex, compelling world isn't necessary if the story is plot or cast-driven (which this is). But Bardugo's worldbuilding is complex, and takes up a fair bit of wordcount...it just isn't compelling. The pages are flush with descriptive interjections about the Grishaverse and its geopolitics, but they're rarely interesting or well thought-out or satisfyingly deep. I can forgive the cringey fake-Dutch, but I can't forgive the lazy, trope-filled caricature that is Fjerdan. Half the book is spent up there yet absolutely nothing of interest returns with the cast to Kerch. They're written as typical faceless frozen brutes centered mindless martial zealotry, despite the insinuation that they're an entire, thriving kingdom. They have an entire warrior caste of elite...teenagers? They have a completely contradictory social code of anti-magic yet their sacred castle is riddled with obviously Grisha-made artefacts? They keep a bunch of tanks just lying around with the keys in, fueled up, ready to burst through their walls whilst the entire nation's military complex does what, exactly!?

(Minor spoiling tangent - I have absolutely no fucking clue what was happening with the tank scene in the Ice Court. The teenagers can just...drive tanks? Fire it's various guns? Drive through stone walls? Also, when driving into a stone wall, people are thrown FORWARD Leigh, not backwards!!)

Anyway, the plot was written to a solid tempo despite the flashbacks, which were kept relatively short and entertaining. Quick-paced enough to keep you reading. I didn't find the (as another review mentioned) sitcom-style, cheesy humour to be too difficult to swallow. At times both the good and bad guys couldn't help but force in exposition about their cunning plans into their dialogue (often at very awkward instances), but this can be forgiven. Because its YA.

(caveat: I'm aware there is plenty more Grishaverse books. Maybe the worldbuilding is more complete in them, but I won't hold my breath. Bardugo has shown herself to me to not quite get what I consider to be good worldbuilding. It should leave you wanting to know more; woven deftly into the story; exhibit uniqueness and originality; be coherent and informed and consistent. This ain't all that).

Lastly, a fitting soundtrack to how I imaged much of the events unfolding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJGcO5Une-g