Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)
By Leigh Bardugo
Publication Year: 2015
Type: Fiction
Genre: fantasy, adventure
Read on 2020-01-31
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2020 Reading Survey ➞
★★★☆☆
Swashbuckling noir heist fantasy with an ensemble cast of broken tragic ne’er do wells who, between the lot of them, cover basically every type of damage. This book is...a lot. I liked a lot of it but also wished it didn’t drag out so many of the tragic backstories to reveal as a “surprise” in the second half. Feel like those could’ve been given to us earlier so we could’ve had more thorough, thoughtful character development.
Aesthetics were fantastic, seedy pseudo-Amsterdam underbelly of gangs and thieves and brothels is superb. Magic system is fine but I haven’t read the other books so I must’ve missed some background.
Multi-perspective chapters didn’t entirely work for me - it may as well have been written in full third-person omniscient considering we still don’t know a lot of the characters motivations/internal monologues (i.e. Kaz!!! How was the sneaky motherfucking doing the sneak!!! What feels was he feeling!! We wanna know!!! Or not know at all!!! Pick one!!). That said my favourite perspective to read was Inej, whose chapters were actually introspective and revelatory, as opposed to Jesper’s which told me nothing about him as a person.
Romances were okay, but not the main story so not my main gripe either. The gay blip was like the lesbian kiss in Star Wars TROS, not really worth anything.
The heist here isn’t built up like a mystery the reader is meant to solve, so there’s a lot of pieces of the puzzle that just get re-drawn as we go along. Not as satisfying as a true heist where the execution is the focal point.
Decent read but I probably won’t read the sequel anytime soon. I enjoyed it for what it was but would not have chosen it if not for booktube and the encouragement of my teenaged sister and her friend, my lovely bookish children whose opinions I value and often disagree with, shout-out to y’all.
