Review: Six of Crows

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ooooooooh my I should not have waited so long to put my thoughts down about this book! But I HAVE had more than enough time to go back through it, think it over, and really let both the story and the characters sink in...because that's how I feel this story demands to be read.

For me, the story started off slowly, with layer upon layer of mystery right from the very first chapter. I kept asking myself, "Who are these people? Where do they come from? What's their backstory?" - and although this bothered me at first (I like to know everything about everything, especially in terms of character motives), I grew to understand that, obviously, Leigh Bardugo was merely exercising her masterful story-telling skills, weaving truth and lie and motive with plot as veiled and smooth as Ketterdam's fog:

"...the Ketterdam weather was not cooperating. There'd been no breeze off the harbor that day, and a gray milk fog had wreathed the city's canals and crooked alleys in damp. Even here among the mansions of the Geldstraat, the air hung thick with the smell of fish and bilge water, and smoke from the refineries on the city's outer islands had smeared the night sky in a briny haze. The full moon looked less like a jewel than a yellowy blister in need of lancing."

Having myself just spent a year living and working in Amsterdam, I absolutely love the setting of this story! (Yes, I'm biased!). Although all of the places in the story are obviously fictional, just like in her previous works Bardugo has obviously done her research and knows her way around this famous city - the spelling of names and street names, The Barrel and West Stave (real life: Red Light District), the Harbour, the Exchange, the canals and the tall, crooked houses, even the way she describes the people and what they eat and the smells of the city, it all hit close to home for me and I enjoyed it immensely.

Obviously in saying all of that I cannot help but gush over Bardugo's absolutely beautiful descriptive prose. She nails it, every damn time, which I adored about her writing in The Grisha Trilogy and was thankful to see again here. I have to admit that I was definitely skeptical going into Six of Crows because I love, love, love her previous works, but lo and behold she knocks it right out of the park yet again.

The multiple POV's are the one thing that could have really messed up all these positive vibes but they honestly didn't even phase me. I felt that Bardugo kept an excellent hold on all of her character's motives and inner-thoughts, never jarring us from one mind to the next and always leaving off one character's chapter with some sort of mini-cliff-hanger to keep me reading onward.

"Brick by brick," he muttered to himself. They were the only words that kept his rage in check, that prevented him from striding through the Emerald's garish gold-and-green doors, demanding a private audience with Rollins, and slitting his throat."

I LOVE KAZ. He is a despicable, blood-thirsty thief with an incredibly tragic backstory, and yet despite his nastiness you bet your buns I love that guy. He's perfectly flawed, hopelessly in love, and probably a little coo coo for cocoa puffs, but he has an inner strength that is admirable and no one can deny this from him. There are multiple layers to Kaz, each one more complicated than the next to keep you on your toes.

"You're about to be rich, Kaz. What will you do when there's no more blood to shed or vengeance to take?"
"There's always more."
"More money, more mayhem, more scores to settle. Was there never another dream?"

My love for Inej grew steadily throughout the book and was solidified by the end. She is such a strong, amazing female character, from her Suli proverbs and 'spidery' ways of moving about the city, to her fierce love for her family and country from which she was taken. Inej and Kaz's relationship is complicated, and more often than not we see her act as almost a 'spider' within his ear, a whispering voice of reason and rationality, ever-questioning his motives and morale (to which he laughs and brushes off).

I could go on and on, trust me. Not only Kaz and Inej but the whole cast of main characters are as richly developed and complex in personality as one could ever hope. Nina is another incredibly fierce female character and I admire her resourcefulness and steady heart.

I haven't even mentioned the plot! Well all you need to know is that it is a slow-burning kind of plot. There is a lot of planning, and talking about said plans, as we're dealing with the most dangerous heist attempted into a famously impenetrable prison. Though once the action gets going, you better hold on. The heist is fascinating, the details are mind-boggling; how Bardugo could keep it all straight is beyond me, but my oh my it turned out brilliant and I loved it to the end!

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