Crooked Kingdom

Book Title: Crooked Kingdom

Author: Leigh Bardugo
Series: Six of Crows #2

Date Started: September 27th 2016

Date Completed: October 1st 2016

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

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

I adored this book and it's a wonderful ending to the story, but I have to admit that it didn't quite live up to Six of Crows. In the end, it didn't stop me loving it in the slightest - I really couldn't put it down - and I'm actually quite sad that it's over now. I'm just hoping Bardugo has more stories in this world hidden up her sleeve to come.

Part of what makes these books so good is how utterly immersive they are, and that comes how well built the world is. Somehow, I remember pretty much everything in terms of politics and magic and action from Six of Crows because it's so well established as a real world. Bardugo has definitely grown as an author since Shadow and Bone, because I seem to remember a lot of people having a problem with how much sheer information you have to take in so quickly in order to just understand what's going on. In Crooked Kingdom I could easily slip back into everything like I read Six of Crows yesterday, and of course the easier it is to get lost in the world, the deeper you can go into the story and its characters.

The big reason why Crooked Kingdom wasn't quite up to Six of Crows' standards was because of this constant feeling that we were in a playground where the characters were testing out all these different relationships and action scenes and crimes, but were ultimately a little safe: pretty much every heist Kaz already has sorted out. He's three steps ahead of everyone without even the reader knowing a lot, and while this exaggerated how awesome he was and gave the reader a little bit of tension when we started repeating that style it definitely reduced the feeling of threat. Six of Crows was so brilliant in its ability to again and again send us to the edge of our seats because the characters were so often being thrown into situations that were essentially entirely out of their control, and we just had to watch them improvise and hope. Crooked Kingdom felt a lot more preplanned.

Choosing Ketterdam as the backdrop for this playground was so good, though. In a way, I was able to let a lot of my frustration with Kaz being seemingly invincible because it is his home turf, and he genuinely does rule the backstreets of the city, regardless of how that affected my anticipation in the book. I loved seeing all the local places the Dregs were surrounded by, but I really wanted time to explore it in more detail.

Crooked Kingdom has a bittersweet ending, and nothing else would have fitted. I was genuinely sad with a lot of the characters, but we've also got such an uplifting conclusion in those last few chapters. Though I didn't connect with the characters quite so much this time - and these books are so heavily character driven - and so didn't react as strongly to their experiences, I was still affected by their endings, and I still don't want to leave them yet.

Bardugo has a knack for worldbuilding, but characters are the real stars of the show in this series and every single one is written with so much care and depth that I just never want to stop reading about them. I have to say that, despite looking at the protagonists' pasts a lot in Crooked Kingdom, I didn't feel like we explored them as people quite as much as in Six of Crows, but I was happy just watching them move on from here - the flashbacks weren't entirely necessary a lot of the time, and weren't as interesting as Kaz, Nina and Matthias' had been in the last book, but I do appreciate the little extra information they gave to the story.

Nina is still my absolute favourite out of the seven protagonists (I'm counting Kuwei even though I know a lot of people don't because I really love his character and I think he does contribute to the atmosphere of the group). Her interactions with Matthias and Kaz especially enforce this: I just love their dynamics and personalities against the world they're in, and they're some of the more unexpected personalities to exist in that sort of backdrop. Kaz' development in this book as well was so interesting, and even though I loved him in Six of Crows, he's probably the one character which Crooked Kingdom added to my love of the person, as opposed to just enforcing it. But honestly, every character is a joy to read, on their own but especially together - I really appreciate Bardugo mixing up the pairings and little groups every now and then just so she can really get the best of their different personalities with any combination of characters.

I love the way Crooked Kingdom draws this story to a close, and Bardugo has really used the structure of the duology the way it should be used. But I really don't want this to be the last time I see these characters; I need more from this world and I don't want to leave it behind.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28933383-crooked-kingdom