Reader Rayna

Title: Six of Crows
Series: Six of Crows #1
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Publish Date: September 29, 2015
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Pages: 480
Format Read: Hardcover

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.

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I’ve owned this book since release, as well as its sequel (which I will read and review soon), so why haven’t I read it until now? Great question that I don’t have an answer for! This book was a fun, action packed heist filled with deeper character elements and interactions that showed the true depth of this hodge-podge crew of misfits just trying to make it in the world.

This book starts out slow, building up the atmosphere of the Barrel, a place in Ketterdam that is very much survival of the fittest, following our characters Kaz and Inej in such a way of introducing them that makes them feel larger than life and much more cunning and clever than their age belies them (this honestly should have been an adult novel with older characters, but I digress). They’re set with the task of finding a man named Bo Yul-Bayur who’s making a stronger form of jurda – an enhancing drug for Grisha to enhance their magical abilities – called jurda parem – and bringing him back to Ketterdam so that his drug won’t get out to the wider world.

Kaz is a thief and pickpocket, built from the streets of the Barrel, and known as Dirtyhands in many circles around Ketterdam. He’s often seen wearing suits and leather gloves, never taking off the gloves in public, which adds to the mysteries and stories surrounding just who he is. I found Kaz to be a fascinating character. He’s always thinking one step ahead, trying to be cautious and plan for almost any and every possible outcome in the instance that something might fall through and fail. He’s sharp and can be very harsh in his words, and also very conniving, using people’s histories against them and to his own advantage.

Inej is a former acrobat, known at the Wraith in the Barrel, and is basically a spy for the Dregs (the gang Kaz and some of the others in this group are from). She’s so light on her feet that none can hear her until it’s too late – hence the nickname. She’s a smart and clever girl who has a harried past of her own, much like many of this group, and though she doesn’t try to let it define her, she does have a few encounters that she cannot avoid in which she freezes, where her past does come back to haunt her and cause this otherwise unshakable girl to fear for her life. I found her to be an incredibly enjoyable character – probably my favorite of the whole group.

Nina is a Grisha, a Heartrender from the Second Army in Ravka who’s been living in Ketterdam in one of the Houses for over a year now playing her role in helping soothe other’s anxieties and pains away. She’s headstrong, but she has a good heart and wants to do what’s right when she can. Though there’s a lot of history between her and Matthias, a Fjerdan from the north who’s stoic and also headstrong, hellbent on wanting Nina dead, while also desiring her when he shouldn’t. I found their dynamic so juicy and good. Like yes, please, give me that drama. I also loved getting the flashbacks of them and how they each ended up in the situation in which he had to be smuggled out of a prison – and how she was the one that put him there.

Jesper was such a fun character. I love his very ADHD coded self, and how he’s constantly bouncing off the walls. His gambling addiction felt real, because he came to Ketterdam to further his education, but things took a turn when he stumbled into a gambling den one day. He’s the sharpshooter of the group, and his aim is almost always true. He’s charasmatic and joyful, with very few serious moments to be had. I loved how animated he was, and how his interactions with Wylan progressed through the story.

Wylan is the outlier of the group, used as leverage in Kaz’s big plan. He’s the son of the mercher in which the deal to smuggle the man making a deadly drug was struck, and though he has his reasons as to why he wanted to run with the Dregs, he proves himself useful and a sort of moral compass at times, even if no one really listens to him when it comes to morality.

Though I felt the beginning was a bit slow to get going, once it got going, it didn’t stop. There was so much action packed into this book. As a heist, I’d expect nothing less, but there were also so many moments of reflection, of flashback, of learning about the characters and their pasts and how they ended up in the Barrel. I felt those moments were so important and I loved how they were weaved into the story overall. Those moments made me genuinely feel for the characters and made me root for them, be angry with them or at them, and even almost cry for them. I didn’t realize how much of this story sunk its teeth into me until I was very far along into it.

I felt that the scenes were described well and that I was often watching a movie in my mind of the characters facing each challenge head on. I think Bardugo did a great job of showing what each character felt or was going through, but also threw in a few twists that kept the reader guessing, as well. It made for such a fun experience and I highly recommend it.

There were moments of tension in both action and emotion, with romance blossoming and souring and tentative and frightened to grow. I love how the romance was explored in here, for sure, and how it left so much open for the next book to dive into it more, should the characters choose to do so.

If you haven’t read this first book of this duology yet, I definitely recommend it. It was a fun time, and one I’m excited to continue in the next book. I’m just sorry it took me ten years to get to it, but hey, I’m finally here!

4.5 stars