Series: Six of Crows #1
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Released: September 29^th, 2015
Received: Own
Warnings: Assault, gore, slavery

Okay, so I am very obviously pretty behind on the times, but I finally sat down and read Six of Crows! Actually, I enjoyed it so much I read both it and Crooked Kingdom back to back, but more on that in another review.

Six of Crows is the first in a duology by Leigh Bardugo, but all of it fits within her Grishaverse world. Meaning it is tied very strongly to Shadow and Bone. Also, it looks like there will be more for this crew in particular, from what Bardugo has been hinting (I may be a new fan, but I’m already super excited about this!).

Enter Kaz Brekker. A criminal prodigy who turned the Dregs into something to be feared. He’s a man that never lets an opportunity pass him by, so you can imagine how quickly he jumped on the heist of a lifetime.

One that would require the best team in order to have even the slightest chance to pull off. But if they do, they’ll have all the money they could ever have needed, or wanted. Certainly enough to attain their dreams, and then some. But first, they must survive.

“No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for ‘good luck.”

You know how sometimes, when you read a book that has been hyped SO much, it ends up not living up to your expectations? That didn’t happen here. I adored Six of Crows. It was rich and intense, and had so much tension and action.

Actually, I might even be bold enough to say that I liked Six of Crows better than Shadow and Bone. The world may be the same, but in many ways, it felt different. Likely thanks to the shift in focus from the Grisha to some (amazing) criminals. On the bright side, I don’t have to choose between the two, and can enjoy them for totally different reasons.

The cast of characters for Six of Crows are, simply put, amazing. I love how unique – and broken – each and every one of them is. I imagine each and every reader will pick their own favorite over the course of these two novels. I know I did.

“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”

One of the best things about this series has got to be the quotability of it all. Seriously, the quotes! There are so many amazing one-liners from just this book alone. It was almost impossible to pick which ones to go with. Almost. I really hope a lot of them make their way into the Netflix series…

 I feel like this was a perfect storm scenario. The world, the characters, the plot. It all worked together. Having read both books (back to back) I do think that I liked Crooked Kingdom even more. So if you haven’t read both, I recommend it!