Six of Crows

Entertaining, light popcorn type fair. Not a lot of substance, but enjoyable.

Expected to despise this book, in part because I really disliked these characters from the Netflix series "Shadow and Bone" and because I am not a fan of YA, but it was actually pretty enjoyable for a while. Did get a bit tiresome near the end.

The plot is pretty predictable. The characters are rather superficial. Everyone has some tragic sob story, which gets pretty old after a while, constant flashbacks break a lot of the tension.

Kaz is a garbage character. The author tells us a hundred times what a terrible person he is, but he seems fine and his sob story was the least believable and most tiresome of them all.

All the characters should have been older, but the author had to make them fit into the YA group so they HAD to be 17 and we the readers HAD to have the beaten into our heads a thousand times.

At the end, I felt nothing for any of the characters and don't care at all to read the next book, honestly. But overall I would say the book as enjoyable. Not a lot of substance, didn't take home any deep or meaningful messages from this one. Would recommend if looking for some entertainment without depth.

I kind of liked this book but didn't love it? I liked the memorable female characters, (Nina and Inej) and the story has an unusual texture that reminds me a lot of "The Lies of Locke Lamora". But it always felt as if I was kept at a bit at a distance.
This might be because the characters were all just a touch too cool to be true, too elegant, too much like stylised photoshop-artworks complete with outer-glow, than real flesh-and-blood people I could care about. They speak the language of "witty banter" rather than anything a real person would say, which made it hard for me to take them seriously. That's why I find it hard to achieve the suspension of disbelief the story asks. This is often the case - if a book has sold me on the emotional angle and I care about the characters I can forgive any number of "Would They Really Do That" or "Could It Possibly Work Like That" moments.
For example, why are the characters are supposed to be in their teens? They don't act or sound like teenagers at all, even toughened teens who were forced to grow up quickly. They actually sound more like soft-living, modern, American twenty or thirty somethings, in the way they speak and behave.
The more I think about it, the more the plot begins to unravel. You're told things about characters rather than being shown them, and that makes it hard to believe their motivations. But I did read it all the way to the end. The story has a sense of humour that I enjoyed, and a certain style, even if that style also meant that I found it emotionally a bit chilly and hard to relate to.

This book has been all over bookstagram for years and I have been wanting to read it but there was something I had to do first. Although this duology stands alone from the Grisha trilogy, I was aware there was a spoiler contained in the pages, so I was determined to finish the trilogy first. And I finally did last year.

Six of Crows is the grown-up, darker cousin to the Grisha trilogy. It follows Kaz Brekker as he prepares his gang for the biggest job of their lives, an almost impossible heist which will pay enough for them all to retire to a life of luxury. Although the job is kinda of a prison break, it follows the formula of a heist story, with the team being assembled and the ensuing disagreements you can come to expect from such a motley bunch.

The characters are fantastic and I enjoyed revisiting the Grishaverse further down the timeline. Although things still aren't peachy for Grisha, many are still slaves and in Fjerda they are hunted down by Drüskelle and face unfair trial for their "crimes". Nina is a Grisha Heartrender, who plies her trade in a brothel, soothing hearts rather than other things. She remains in Ketterdam to right a wrong, to help free Matthias, Grisha hunter who had captured her. You need to read the whole book to get their whole story and the reveal is interspersed throughout.

oth Nina and Matthias end up recruited for Kaz's job-of-a-lifetime, and they are forever at each other's throats. Matthias wants his freedom and Nina wants to protect Grisha. The others are more motivated by the money; Inej was freed from her indenture in a brothel by the Dregs and is now Kaz's right hand woman and Jesper is a sharpshooter with his own secrets. Then there's Wylan, the job's insurance policy, who could do with toughening up.

Kaz is an anti-hero and it makes the book stronger that he's not immediately likeable. His backstory is tragic and by the end you will understand what drives him. Like the author, Kaz walks with a cane, but that doesn't stop him being an excellent criminal.

This novel features both a brilliant heist and a great cast of characters. What more could you want? I finished it quickly and it compares very favorably to similar books.

Kaz Brekker aka Dirtyhands the baddest boy in the baddest part of Ketterdam (a thinly veiled Fantasy disguise for Amsterdam, since I haven't been to either that's a guess though). He does a credible job as (more or less) evil mastermind.
Inej, the Wraith, his personal master spy, knife artist and acrobat.
Jesper the risk-addicted, gambling sharp-shooter, and Kaz' right hand. I seem to imagine him wearing a floppy hat (which he doesn't at least not in the book).
Nina, the witchy witch who literally breaks people's hearts.
Wylan, the slumming merchant's son who makes stuff explode. Also he has a nice singing voice.
And an unnamed "tank" they'll have to "recruit" first. Matthias the northern giant with the moral qualms

I like the opening chapters in which Kaz and his gang get to "negotiate" with another gang. There's crossing and double crossing and it gives the reader a nice introduction to the way Kaz thinks and plans. There's several nice turns that are more or less surprising depending on how many heist stories one has recently read.

The actual story begins when Kaz' himself is offered a very lucrative job. Of course the job is impossible and dangerous and nobody but him would even attempt it.

What I liked most about this book were the characters with their strengths and weaknesses. There were emotions and tough decisions, success and failure for all of them. Sacrifice for some. I liked the way Kaz' made his plans and most of the time it felt like all of that had been planned ahead of time and there wasn't too much luck involved.

What I did not enjoy as much was the amount of romance intertwined with the story. So there are 6 young people going on a trip and surprise surprise it looks like there are going to be several couples by the end of the series Jesper and Wylan being the obvious third. The signs are all there. Yes it makes for nice tension and is also needed as plot device ... but ... you should have heard the sigh that escaped me when the group arrived at their destination and the triple romance became more apparent and I realized only nobody was going to be left out.

Besides this I seem to prefer my protagonists a little older these days. They all seem to be around 18 years old and in some places this stretches my willingness to suspend disbelief concerning their competence a little.

Last but not least the book ends on a terrible cliff-hanger. It could have been resolved and I would still have wanted to read a second book. The finale was good and I am guessing the book should just have ended a little earlier to give me the closure I want at the end of a novel. A good ending point in my opinion would have been when they sail away from Fjerdan ... it would still have left the reader wondering about Nina's fate but instead we get to peek into the start of the next story with the whole double cross by van Eck I books with a real ending, even if that leaves openings for more.

But all of this is not taking away a lot from how much I did enjoy reading this book. I will definitely read the next one because this one was a well-written enjoyable read. I love interesting characters! And that's really where this excels the most.