Clare Reviews: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Six of Crows

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Series: The Dregs #1

Pages: 491

Format: Paperback

Rating: 5/5

Blurb: 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. 

"Her father would have said the shadows were about their own business tonight. Something bad was going to happen here."

Leigh Bardugo's first series was good. I enjoyed reading it and I'd quite like to read it again. But this. This was something else entirely. When I first heard about I was kind of interested and then my interest kept growing until it reached the point of ridiculousness and I struggled to read anything in the week before its release. So I went in fully prepared to think it was amazing. But that doesn't change the fact that this is one of the best books I've read all year. I feel like this might not be the most coherent review I have ever written so I'm sorry but dear god I loved this book.

For me characters will always be the most important thing in a book. And that was possibly my issue with fully committing to the Shadow and Bone trilogy - I loved the Darkling yes, but the other characters? Not as much. Here we have six main characters, and every single one of them was strong and well written. I was trying to think who my favourite was and I can't decide because they are all just so wonderful in different ways. Each person has strengths and weaknesses all their own, and their voices were very instantly recognisable. If you took out all indications of who was speaking, I think you'd probably still be able to tell who was saying what. 

Kaz was the leader of the group and in him Leigh Bardugo has embraced the darkness. He was twisty and untrustworthy and cunning in all the best ways. By the end of the book I felt like he was a real person I had met and it feels so good to have an immoral protagonist (a whole gang of them technically), they're always so much more fun. He is the stand out character of the novel, he was so complex and fascinating and I just loved him. His misdirection and secret keeping was one of my favourite parts of the book. There were so many times where parts of the plan were revealed to some but not all of the group or where they weren't revealed to you either. There were so many times during the book where I got shocked by a characters actions, to get mad at them, or panic about what was happening to them only for everything to come clear later on and I loved guessing how it would work itself out. I have so many trust issues with this now - I will never know whether to trust any of these characters again and weirdly I kind of like that.

I can't remember the last time I got this invested in a romantic ship after just one book. And here I am invested in three at once. The thing I love about this is that they are all somehow, despite being fairly different pairings, my favourite kind. They were all very realistic and I rooted for them all but I had so much anxiety about them! I could go on (in extreme detail) about how much I love these characters, and how much I loved every relationship (friendly or otherwise) between them but we'd honestly be here all day and it's way better for you to read it for yourself!

The ending is kind of a cliff-hanger (which are basically my least favourite kind of ending) but I am not even mad. I just want Book 2 and all of it's wonderfulness in front of me like right now and I'll be fine! But unfortunately I have to wait until June 2016. Which it is entirely possible will drive me mad. I have been asked if it's necessary to read the Grisha trilogy before reading Six of Crows and the answer is - not really. Vague I know. The characters are different and so is the setting so you should be fine. There are references to events from the Grisha trilogy so some of the characters backstories might make more sense if you have read them. I definitely recommend reading Shadow and Bone first, if only because it gives you a really good sense of the world (although the world building in this is superb) and besides, it's a good trilogy!

If you like fantasy, or heists, or disreputable characters or just really, really good writing then I definitely recommend Six of Crows. It absolutely did not disappoint me and I very much look forward to reading more from Leigh Bardugo in the future. 

Audible were also kind enough to offer me the chance to share a clip from the audio book with you which you can listen to here. I hope you enjoy it!

You can also find us on Goodreads (Ann and Clare) to keep up with what we are reading