Six of Crows
Ratings1,103
Average rating4.3
Books, Coffee & Passion
I didn't read the Grisha Trilogy before Six of Crows, mostly because I didn't knew I should have read it first and I regretted not reading it but I couldn't put Six of Crows down not even for a second so I didn't wait for the Grisha Trilogy to arrive (yes, I ordered it while I was 50 pages in SoC), so there were some parts about the Grisha universe that I found confusing which was entirely my fault. Anyway, I did eventually understand those details, probably by the 40%-50% mark.
Even though I struggled with some world details, I loved these characters! Their stories, their voices, their thoughts and needs and wants... EVERYTHING. At first I was a little worried about the multi POVs however every character had a very distinct voice and the change of perspectives just flowed seamless. Leigh Bardugo is a queen when it comes to writing a story with multi POVs, honestly I'm very impressed with how she managed to make every character stand out. I was hooked from the first POV!
Six of Crows is addictive, it got to the point that I had dreams about the plot, the characters and their world. The plot is unique with lots of secrets, corruption, chess moves, the characters are dark, captivating, complex and lovable, with rich backstories that will make you root for this crew of criminals. Six of Crows is an epic action-packed story with adventure, criminals, romance and magic. The hype is real! Highly recommended.
No mourners, no funerals.
One of the best books I've ever read! I don't understand how this was so much better than Shadow and Bone but hey, I guess authors improve.
its the second time i read this book in 2 months and i love kaz so much i don't think anyone understands
I had both high and low expectation from this book (yes, duality is my religion).
I was disappointed by the previous trilogy that I've read by this author. Also, I knew that it is a YA book with young characters (they all are 17 +/- a year), therefore I expected a lot of very poor decisions from them. On the other hand, a lot of people like Six of Crows and believe it to be better than the other trilogy. Some even name it their favourite book.
I'm glad that I decided to give Leigh Bardugo second chance. I would not say that Six of Crows is the perfect book and that I loved it with all my heart. However, I did enjoy the book and I'm sure it deserves the four stars.
The best heist movies are filled with intricate planning, last minute challenges thwarted by “actually we meant to do that” reveals, and a cast with a diverse set of strange backgrounds that make them uniquely equipped to pull the whole thing off. So in that sense, Six of Crows is up among the best of the best. The generic fantasy world is SOOOOOO generic and the ethnicities are very real world, painted over with excessive apostrophes so you know it's fantasy, which at times felt a little uncomfortable (like the exotic fantasy version of Roma), but you can tell Bardugo means the diversity earnestly even if she sometimes gets it wrong. And the heist was so very heisty.
I've been reading this for so long and I finally finished it! This is a very fun and an action packed read! It definitely had me on the edge of my seat. I happened to be confused at first but when I was a few chapters in, I started to understand what the hell is actually going on and I was constantly surprised with the happenings in this book. I totally love the author's writing style. The pacing is just so perfect and I love the characters so much. They're all these bad-ass teenagers but with their own distinct personalities which made them so amazing. To be honest, I was quite hesitant to even start reading this, but I'm glad that I did! And you best bet that I will totally pick up the second book right away!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I
I first read Bardugo's short story collection, after inventory here at the library. Something about the cover just sort of stuck out to me. I saw Six of Crows while inventorying the YA Room, noting it's black pages and filed it back for later. Later, after talking with our acquisitions librarian about my love for Bardugo's short story collection, she reminded me that they somehow tied in with her other books we have and I should go check those out. I was reticent to pick up more YA because I keep thinking at 33 I've somehow aged out, but I was not disappointed at all.
Without trying to include spoilers, I always enjoy heists and I always enjoy revenge. This story offered me both, with, of course, some fantasy. I dreaded getting caught up in teenage love triangles, having to pick a “Peeta or Gail” sort of situation, but the love wasn't too over the top in Six of Crows and I didn't find myself distracted by the love components. I enjoyed each of the characters, with Brekker sort of reminding me of many of the “bad guys who ultimately do good ruffian” types I enjoy in a lot of my favorite shows.
Honestly, I could say a lot more good about this but I am getting verbose. I immediately checked out book two, and I'll backtrack to the other Grishaverse books and happily follow Bardugo on goodreads.
okay, after finishing this book some days ago, i felt like i needed to rant a little bit about it. everyone praises it left and right, so even without wanting to, i had some expectations going into it. and it did not go too well for me. i want to preface this by saying that i haven't read YA in a while, mostly being interested in it when i was around the age of 15. my opinion, as all of the opinions are, is very subjective, as this book is loved by many other people.
things i liked:
- the plot. the heist itself was fun to read about. this was the reason i picked the book up in the first place, so i did enjoy the heist, but it's sweet time to get there.
- was not an info dump. i don't know if this was intentional or not, but we learn about the world as we go, without a long lesson about how everything in this universe works. it was pretty accessible for someone who didn't read any other grisha books.
things i didn't like:
- ages. ok, i get it. 16 is a normal age for your YA character, but neither of them acted their age at all. it's hard for meto imagine that a bunch of teens would end up being top tier criminals. okay, one or two ended up getting there somehow, but a whole bunch of them? i didn't find this too believable. it's understandable how anyone younger than these characters wouldn't find anything wrong with that though. to YA-reading little me, it made perfect sense that someone just a few years older could act so mature and be capable of so much more things than a kid my age. it's just that now it's hard for me to comprehend this when i look at a character so young acting so uncharacteristically. yet, i still think there was a way to write those characters better, with less of this “badass show off” behaviour and more true how an actual teenager would act, while still being a strong character.
- romance. this felt so unnecessary, as if one of the requirements of getting this book published was to put everyone in a romantic relationship. i didn't feel any tension between these couples. it seemed like we were supposed to believe this tension existed based on some occasional thoughts they had of one another and flashbacks. i felt like like the author was just trying to convince me that something is going on between them, rather than just create a tension and meaningful action between them in real time.
- flashbacks. my favorite part, the actual plot, was hidden behind a lot of flashbacks to the point of it being annoying and excessive. yes, learning about people's background is cool and is supposed to get you to care more about the character, but this is supposed to happen in a “side story format” and here the plot felt like one.
- kaz brekker. he's insufferable, fight me. i didn't get attached to any of the characters, yes, but neither of them annoyed me or felt as flat as he did, they just were there, doing their thing. kaz.. well, he's just a 2D, “bad boy” stereotype with no actual personality beyond that. which is disappointing because i'm a sucker for an immoral asshole kind of character. he was the worst offender of “not acting his own age” complaint i had, as well as.. he didn't live up to his reputation. what i mean by that is every character in this book is trying to convince us how immoral he is, that he is a monster, yet we never really witness him doing those terrible things he's apparently known for. again, this felt like the author thought it'd be easier to just repeatedly call him an asshole and hope we'll just believe her, rather than, i don't know, write him actually do said shitty things maybe.
but, overall, i didn't hate this book, hence the 3 star rating. some things did annoy me, but it was entertaining to some extent when we got to the actual plot. this book left me with a strong opinion that it's definitely not a bad choice for someone who normally enjoys YA novels, but it might not be the best one for a person who is sceptical about the genre.
THIS BOOK WAS BRILLIANT!!
So well written, so well thought out, and not a dull moment, not a single one!
The character development and the various relationships are so well written, and going between reading so many different POVs felt so natural and so right, it was an easy read and I highly recommend this book to everyone! I don't know why it took me so long to get to it but I'm so glad I did. I love it.
This book was really fun but I think the audiobook might have made me not like it as much. The audiobook was well narrated but highlighted how over the top a lot of the dialogue felt. This was a fun read, but tropey and over the top.
A gambler, a convict, a wayward son, a lost Grisha, a Suli girl who had become a killer, a boy from the Barrel who had become something worse.
I can't believe I'd give it all up for these six kids even though they're a bunch of thieving criminals.
This read took me way longer than I wanted it to (yeah so it was two days but I could've happily read it in a few hours) which was surprising considering that I wasn't that keen on the Grisha trilogy. Fingers crossed Crooked Kingdom is just as good.
I'm not sure exactly how good Six of Crows is, but I am sure I had a great time reading it.
I was underwhelmed in the beginning. Then things picked up and I was having the time of my life. Now having finished it and looking at the book as a whole, I'm not near as blown away as a lot of people are. Here's a few particular choices that got to me:
-Worldbuilding: I found myself skimming passages meant to orient me, because they felt like flowery fluff. The concept of Grisha was explained poorly and slowly, especially given its significance to the politics of the world and dynamics between characters. Certain elements were obvious because of context or repetition, but a lot of the time it felt more like telling than showing.
-Exposition: I'm all for establishing backstory, but I don't like shoehorning things in to justify something that either just happened or is about to happen. Like checking a box to be able to move forward with the story. For example, why did Inej have a major epiphany while climbing an incinerator shaft? It also felt like Wylan was shortchanged.
-Representation: Six of Crows did have a surprising (to me) amount of representation. Bardugo explored disability, sexuality, and sex work. However, some of this was done with a broad brush. An example of this is Inej's ultimatum to Kaz on page 434. I love Inej, and of course I understand not wanting to be with someone unless they can be vulnerable. But it seemed to frame Kaz's aversion to physical touch as some sort of personal failing? Maybe (okay, definitely) he has a lot to work through. But it's not his fault he developed some issues after being surrounded by bloated corpses including the body of his beloved brother.
At this point it might sound like I didn't enjoy SoC at all, but I did! It was a lot of fun, and I was invested in the characters. I very badly wanted them to be okay and none of them were ever okay, not even close. I think Bardugo did a good job with her teenage girl characters. She provided Nina and Inej with strength and cunning, but didn't do so by portraying femininity as weak or inferior. There were parts that made me laugh out loud.
In all, Six of Crows is a combination of (1) angsty young love, (2) tragic backstory, and (3) high-stakes action scenes. Sometimes the ratio of those three components felt off. But, it's a quick read for the page count, and even if I thought some of it was dumb, I am invested. I want to read Crooked Kingdom in the near future.
I picked up this book in an hostel on holidays and wasn't disappointed. It was funny with an interesting plot and good written characters. Can't wait to read the sequel back home. Maybe it would have been nice if the author didn't try to paired up in a romantic way the characters in the team. Live this new univers!
Where in the world do I start with this review? Leigh Bardugo floored me with her characters and world building. Mind blown! If you start this book, be prepared, buy the second one ahead of time. You will do nothing else but read it until you're at the end and then immediately start the next. Reading this book is like being given all these pieces to a large puzzle through multiple point of views, and each chapter is another piece sinking into place until you start seeing the pictures they form and it's a pop and flash of realization as the whole thing comes together. You're going to meet six kids who are about to try and pull off the largest heist in the history of this world. It's dangerous, the odds are stacked against them and a mix of secrets and past bad blood surround them, but holy hell is it a ride. They might be young, but the chemistry between characters flows so well, that you don't even doubt what they're doing. Ketterdam is a merchant's city, where the rich get richer and the poor are stepped on. Kaz, Inej, Nina, Matthias, Wylan and Jesper are all broken or damaged in some way, struggling to survive in this city of the rich. As the story unfolds you will see how each came to be in the dregs of Ketterdam and how even though they each struggle, together they are strong and if they pull of this heist filthy rich. There's magic, heart wrenching scenes, and too many edge of your seat chapter endings that make this book unable to be put down. The character development is just stunning, watching each character evolve in their own way and fight their own demons was mesmerizing. And the world building! Despite how many different cultures that are introduced nothing is confusing or over done. You're given just enough on each to have it all make sense. Well done Leigh Bardugo. I'm jealous, but well done.
Ooooh, this was fun! Should I have read the first trilogy before I started this one? Well, bygones....
Very much enjoyed the varied cast of complex and fascinating characters. I will definitely be reading the second in this series.
this gave me serious [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora 29588376 The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1) Scott Lynch https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1458646334s/29588376.jpg 2116675] vibes and made me feel ALL THE THINGS.
Nothing better conveys my enjoyment of this book than the fury and disappointment I feel right now. You see, I read the Kindle version, and was humming along around 77% through the book, seeing some new threads develop, the building blocks of a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the hero, some kickass action, and delicious plotting.And then THE END.So yeah, the Kindle version has tons of sample material, acknowledgements, and so on at the end of this FIRST HALF of the story. So be warned. If you're into the story and you want to know what happens next, have [b:Crooked Kingdom 22299763 Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2) Leigh Bardugo https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1456172607s/22299763.jpg 42090179] on deck!So, why did I like it? It's a well-constructed heist story, set against a compelling world where some people have magical abilities (think air/water/blood/metal bending a la Avatar), and their mostly workaday powers become a pivot point for global conflict. The motley crew assembled to retrieve a vital player from an unbreakable prison all have their own backstories that brought them to this caper, and those stories slowly come to light as the adventure progresses. Each character is well-drawn, and the potential romances and URST add some spice. (This is YA, so nothing more than PG-13, but the tension is artfully written.)This reminds me of [b:Head On 35018901 Head On (Lock In, #2) John Scalzi https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1497994548s/35018901.jpg 45415409], despite them having nothing in common on the face of it. Both use standard storytelling structures (SoC a heist, HO a police procedural), but they use the tropes well, and set them in a world that raises interesting questions about the human condition. Add in fun, relatable characters who get us invested, and you've got a story guaranteed to keep the pages turning.Better wrap up so I can go dive into The Crooked Kingdom and neglect all my worldly duties till I finish!
Nothing is impossible. It just takes longer. About 500 pages longer. An impossible heist with a band of criminals, with the secrets they hide proving their strengths or their only true weakness. Twists and turns keep you turning the pages on this magical fantasy. Couldn't fault it.
It took me a while longer to get into this read than I had expected. I'd heard a lot of good things about the book and was looking forward to it. I found that for some reason the characters took a while to grab me. But towards the end, I was very happy to see where the book was going. I had planned on putting off the sequel for a while until I could give it another chance, but after finishing on the cliff hanger, I now want to know what happens next.
I DID IT!! I FINALLY DID IT!! It's only taken me 4 months to read this bloody book!!
Well it took me 4 months to read 150 pages, then I read the rest in a week. I just think I wasn't in the mood for this when I started reading this, but when I was finally in the mood I really enjoyed it.
I love the dynamic between the characters the most, some of the one liners are just brilliant. Nina is one of my favourite characters, as she's so sassy and strong, but I have such a soft spot for all the other characters too. I also really enjoyed the world Bardugo created, intertwining folk lore and Dutch language.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book when I eventually got into it and will look forward to Crooked Kingdom, but will sure I'm in the mood for this this time!
The first book of the Grisha trilogy was so poorly written that I quit after book one, so I wasn't expecting much, but she got so much better, thankfully! She excels at worldbuilding, but this time she really leaned into characters, observations, and much better dialogue, and kept a humming and intricate plot and pace. It was incredibly long but I wasn't bored once! Had a great conversation with BOB team about the growth of her writing today, and the team is looking forward to reading the sequel!