Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #1)

Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)
Leigh Bardugo
Published: Dec. 1, 2015 (Henry Holt & Co.)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: library

Reviewed by: Amy

Rating (out of 5): 5 stars

Ketterdam is a place where anything is possible: for the right price. No one knows this as well as thief extraordinaire Kaz Brekker. Kaz has worked his way up from the bottom of the Barrel to being one of the top lieutenants of the Dregs—just one of a myriad of gangs that runs the streets of Ketterdam. Kaz is always looking to go higher in the ranks. High enough to see the revenge he keeps close to his heart come to fruition. When Kaz is approached about taking on a job of procuring the creator of a decidedly deadly/powerful new drug–from the people who have already kidnapped him—money speaks volumes. But to pull off this heist, he’ll need the perfect crew:

Nina – a Grisha heartrender with sins to atone for
Matthias – a convict with a score to settle
Jesper – a sharpshooter with mounting debt
Wylan – a runaway trying to prove he can make it on his own
Inej – a spy known as the Wraith ready to come back to life

Together, each will bring their own set of skills to the table to pull off the impossible. And if they should fail: “No mourners, No funerals.”

You guys, this book!!!!

When I first heard of Six of Crows and the fact that it’s set in the same world as Leigh Bardugo’s debut series The Grisha Trilogy I thought, since I’ve only read the first book of the aforementioned series, that I might find reading this one too confusing.

How. Wrong. I. Was.

Seriously, if you’re like me and had this same thought, squash it now and just pick up this book. If you thought Grisha was good, you’ll be blown away by Six of Crows.

Leigh Bardugo hits her stride with Six of Crows. The heist aspect is well plotted out and drives the story forward. But it’s the characters that drew me in and kept my attention. They are each so different from one another in their backgrounds yet somehow they’ve all ended up in this same predicament. We get glimpses of how their stories intersect, how they’ve all ended up on this path, through cleverly placed flashbacks. Oftentimes flashbacks have the capability to, unfortunately, take readers out of the pacing of the main storyline, but not here. Each time we delved into a character’s past, I wanted more. And each time something from their past came back to test them in their present circumstance, I applauded Leigh Bardugo for the seamless way she made those connections. I was so invested in these characters and the often pulse-pounding caper, that when something wouldn’t go according to plan and a new path would have to be forged, I would sit glued to my book until things worked out, which is to say, I was glued to this book to the end.

Events from Six of Crows definitely carry over into Crooked Kingdom. But, if you’re like me, you’ll be more worried about anyone who would deign to be an obstacle in Kaz Brekker’s way than anything else.

What started out as a library borrow, turned into me buying both this book, and Crooked Kingdom. It’s. That. Good.

Sexual content: references to sex, references to sex slaves