Six of Crows – Book Review

 Title: Six of Crows

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Pages: 462

Synopsis: Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he’ll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:

Break into the notorious Ice Court
(a military stronghold that has never been breached)

Retrieve a hostage
(who could unleash magical havoc on the world)

Survive long enough to collect his reward
(and spend it)

Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done – and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable – if they don’t kill each other first.

My Review: 

There is a lot of hype surrounding the Six of Crows duology, and now I can see why! This book is action packed right from the first chapter – there is literally never a dull moment! Kaz is clever and always one step ahead of his opponents, and his crew is all skilled in their areas of expertise and I loved watching them work together, seeing how they support each other in battle and other con.

Because of the hype, I felt like I already knew the characters before I started reading, but I was wrong. None of them were what I expected, and they didn’t follow any typical character outlines either. Kaz was not the typical mysterious and sarcastic bad boy, but rather a mysterious and rough boy who clearly had problems and was just following his own agenda rather than charming everyone around him. The rest of his crew had their own unique stories and backgrounds as well.

Six of Crows represents diversity very well. The dregs have multiple people of colour, people of different body sizes, from different cultures, and of different sexual orientations, which is a really important thing to see in literature.

The underlying aspect of Russian culture and setting in this book also intrigued me. It is very unique from the books I’ve read, and part of the reason I loved Kaz’s crew member Matthias so much.

I found the backstories and personal motives of the characters a bit slow to be revealed, which left me slightly unable to connect with them in the beginning, but as they came my love only grew. My favourite was that of Nina and Matthias, but I expect that we’ll see more of the others in the next book Crooked Kingdom.

All in all, the intense action combined with the intriguing dynamic of this group of criminals made for a fantastic storyline, and I can’t wait to start the sequel!!

My Rating: