Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Review)

Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)
Six of Crows 
(Six of Crows #1)
by Leigh Bardugo
YA Fantasy
Hardcover, Paperback, & ebook 480 pages
September 29th 2015 by Henry Holt and Company
Summary

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.

  

My Review

SIX OF CROWS... This author knows how to write. How to pull you in, how to develop her characters that, even with several points-of-views, are each unique so that the reader is never confused whose voice is being used. She knows how to have you holding on with both hands and practically dying from the suspense of wondering if the characters will make it to the end. Of seeing the beginning of a little romance that isn't really even romance, but deep friendship in some cases, loyalty or protectiveness in others, and the inkling of what is to come or what could come if the characters' backgrounds and the situation wasn't so very dismal. It was one intense, crazy, heartbreaking ride. One of surprising twists, plans, journeys. One that had a pausing ending of regrouping that will stretch and stretch while the reader waits for the next book...

It took me a while to read this book. Not because it is difficult or boring in any way. I had a bunch of other books that I had to read first, so I'd read some and then have to put it aside. I haven't read any reviews for it either because I really wanted to get in and not be influenced in any way. My delay in getting it read also had to do with it being so intense and the side you see of these terrible people who have treated these characters and others... It is so wrong and cruel. It upsets me and makes me feel a little vengeful. And they're fictional. The slaving and the menagerie and the back stabbing, stealing, murder... The emotions and characters are so real. The violence and situation of who they are, what they've done, and where they've come from - more in the sense of the terrible hardships they have faced and risen above and how they have had to survive. The characters are simply amazing. I do have my favorites in Kaz and Inej, second would probably be Nina and Matthias. Two star-crossed relationships in many ways with no hope, but I hope anyway. I loved the rest too: Jesper and Waylen. The villains were also so well played, but I didn't love them, obviously. Quite the opposite, really.

Then there is the plot itself. Kaz is a genius. I love how you just see pieces of the puzzle and what he's doing, but you don't get the whole picture until if unfolds, or sometimes after it unfolds. You don't know when something goes wrong if it was part of the plan or if they're all doomed. That's also what makes it so intense. The last third of the book was crazy and I wanted to just read as quickly as I could, but couldn't because I didn't want to miss a single thing.

I debated a little on the rating. The story is slated as YA with these youth to young adult characters (16 or 17 to 19, I think), but I really felt I was reading an adult fantasy. I would say 16+ or 18+ just for intensity, subject matter, and the violence. It was done so marvelously well. The writing. The characters. The plot. I'm dying for book two, but there wasn't too much of a cliffhanger that it was overdone. The author did a fabulous job, especially for setting a story in the Grisha world, but making it so very different and just as amazing in its own way.

Content: Quite a bit of suggestive content (mostly referring to the past), innuendo (a little of it gay), violence (some of it rather gruesome), some swearing, adult subject matter.
Source: Purchased



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