Six of Crows

Book Title: Six of Crows

Author: Leigh Bardugo
Series: Six of Crows #1

Date Started: October 21st 2015

Date Completed: October 30th 2015

Genres: Fantasy, Thriller, Romance, Action, Adventure
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

Six of Crows had a really solid story and delivery; it wasn't as dark and dangerous as the blurb claims, but it was loads of fun and really it's the characters that make this great. You can pick and choose your favourite to root for (Nina. Definitely Nina), but by the end you'll have fallen in love with them all regardless.

Something a lot of people have been saying about this book is that you don't really need to have read The Grisha Trilogy beforehand - most people are saying this is a better series (and I probably agree, even though I loved Shadow and Bone). But I'm not sure how far I agree that you can go straight into this book: while you don't need to know the story of Bardugo's other trilogy, you definitely need to have background knowledge on the Grisha and how the society of the world works, and I don't think we really get this world building well enough to make that clear in Six of Crows. And even past the point of understanding, Bardugo's universe is amazingly vibrant and detailed, and I think it'd be a shame to miss out on the magic of it because you were trying to work out the lore and politics.

However, the little references to The Grisha Trilogy itself were done well: I'm not a huge fan of intertextuality because it sometimes just feels like pushed advertisement (characters talk about people from other books that they have no reason to know of; a highly convenient link between people or events appear etc). But the little nods to the trilogy were subtle and a lot of the time the culture itself was used instead of direct examples of characters etc. Having said that, there is definitely enough variation from Shadow and Bone and its sequels for it to be worth reading both (the main thing I liked was exploring a poorer and arguably less influential part of the world).

The plot line of Six of Crows primarily focuses on one thing: the heist. The obviously dangerous thing about this is that it could get boring; it could get unnecessarily dragged out; we could focus too much on one character and not enough on everyone else - these were all things I was quietly concerned about, but I was pleasantly surprised when they didn't happen. The structure was thought-through enough so that we got a really good diversity of plot throughout the whole book, and enough variation on the narration characters to make sure we could go back and forth between stories we may have been more interested in.

I was really happy with where the story left off. Six of Crows is its own story with a resolution, but there's room for things to carry on in the sequels. I personally want to know what happens to the characters, and I think Bardugo knew to have faith in her characters so didn't force a cliffhanger or loads of loose ends at the end of the book to make people come back for more next time.

I was impressed that every character had their own personality, since usually there's somewhat of a blur between characters when there's several protagonists. But everyone had their own distinguishable qualities, and everyone had their own time in the narration too.

Kaz was the closest to being the dark, ruthless antihero we're sold and he was brutal at times, admittedly, but there was still a sort of familiarity between everyone else around him - and an unspoken trust. You got the feeling that though they all might be a little wary of him, they trusted him to know what he was doing, and had almost familial ties with him.

I wasn't sure about Inej when she first turned up, but actually she grew on me quite a bit. I think Bardugo had a soft spot for her too, since she seems to be at the center of most big events, but even so her character was interesting. I would've liked it to rely a little less on her backstory, but even so she was a good protagonist to be pushing the plot forward a lot of the time.

Nina was my favourite character, and she definitely felt like the big sister of the group, as well as perhaps the moral compass even when she was conflicted on what was right herself. She was also one of the characters that didn't rely so much on her past to push her present goals: she had history, especially with Matthias, but she was acting in the story because of her beliefs and who she was as a person.

Matthias, Jesper and Wylan were also all interesting characters, but they didn't jump out to me as the most important - nevertheless I still really like their personalities and enjoyed they contribution to the story (I just don't have anything extensive to say about them right now).

Six of Crows takes its sweet time getting started. I have to say I really was getting quite bored for the first hundred odd pages, regardless of how interesting the characters was; there was just a really strong feeling that we were waiting for something to actually happen and start the plot. I would then argue that approaching the climax there was too much exposition 'flashbacks' that could have been put in the early stages to get it moving a little quicker. However, once the story actually started I was really happy with the pacing throughout. It was really nice to have a book focusing really on only one event, but it being naturally long and complex enough to take three hundred pages.

I really enjoyed Six of Crows, and I feel like anyone who enjoyed The Grisha Trilogy but wanted it to step up a little towards the end would love this. Perhaps it isn't the dark heist its marketed as, but it has a diverse range of characters whose objectives all conflict each other and create a genuine uncertainty on whether they will achieve their goal. Great world building, fantasy elements, exciting action, and interesting characters.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23006119-six-of-crows