Tag: sixofcrows

Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom

Where to begin! This has quickly become one of my favourite YA series of all time. It’s gripping, gritty and wonderfully entertaining.

It moved away from what has become expected of YA fantasy. Even in the last series I discussed, Shadow and Bone, Bardguo relied on certain tropes (love triangle etc.). In SoC and CK she almost inverts these tropes. Yes, the characters still ‘couple up’, but I don’t see that as unrealistic especially due to their age.

What is most outstanding about these novels is the character work. Bardugo creates phenomenally unique voices for each of the six protagonists. This is aided by having close third-person narration and swapping perspective from chapter to chapter. This is something more common with adult fantasy. It is one of the techniques that allows these novels to feel slightly more mature than the trilogy before it. Each character is distinctive, and each relationship is different and complicated, and just feels real. Jesper is my personal favourite. A twitchy sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a bet. His character ark is great as we learn he is Grisha and starts to learn how to use his power. Matthias and Nina both grow to learn each other’s prejudice and I really like the way parts of their history are interspersed as the team make their way to the Ice Court. As it was a path they trod together previously, it did not feel as though it was an exposition dump, it felt well placed and these memories would realistically be at the forefront of their minds while in Fjerda.

Bardugo truly created an immersive world that is set up in the Shadow and Bone trilogy and furthered brilliantly in this duology. Ketterdam is an excellent setting for this story and the characters. A melting pot of barrel thugs and wealthy merchants. The claustrophobic, gritty streets of Ketterdam create a stark contrast to the clean-cut Ice Court.

The construction of story in this series is something to be marvelled at as well. The intricate plot is interconnected with the scheming mind of Kaz. Using the different character viewpoints allows for certain gaps in the readers knowledge and allows Bardugo to pull the rug from under us many times. The tense scenes are written with such pace it gets your heart racing and these are matched with the backstory scenes often adding to the context of the scene and allowing for character development. Each character has a sad or horrific backstory emphasising the dark tropes in the story. Bardugo doesn’t shy away from hard topics like corruption, class division, racial issues and murder. This only adds to the cathartic feeling the reader receives at the ending. The realism of the ending is improved by the fact not all of them make it out. Having a Matthias chapter to show his death was particularly painful, but also done beautifully.

This is a fairly one-sided review, perhaps I will revisit these stories in the future and see if my opinion changed but for now I think these stories are pretty untouchable! But that’s just my opinion!

The Shadow and Bone Trilogy

Yes, I am late to the party on this one! I’ve been making my way through my YA fantasy TBR list during quarantine, and this trilogy felt like a good starting place.

This review will include spoilers!

Overall, I enjoyed this series. It definitely feels like one complete story, but at the same time it also feels like it is setting up future stories. Bardugo does both things very well. If this were the end of the story, it had a definite ending. As we know, however, we see other characters and their journey beyond this trilogy.

Certain aspects of SaB embrace YA cliches. Such as the ‘dull/plain’ female protagonist who goes through a transformation and the love triangle (or quadrangle?). I don’t think these were handled in a bad way, but, for me, they added layers to Alina’s character that made her less relatable and less likeable. That is just my opinion and there were times in the novels where I really warmed to Alina and sympathised with her, despite the cliches.

Alina and her love interests are where the big cliches end. Bardugo has created a really unique universe, which is bleak and beautiful. You get a real sense, even in this early trilogy, that she knows every inch of the whole world she created. The Grisha and their powers are detailed so wonderfully, and of course made far more immersive by the use of a ‘fish-out-of-water’ protagonist, who experiences it all with the reader.

Character is something I will explore more when discussing Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology but there are some great characters in Shadow and Bone. I found Alina unlikeable at times, but she is an interesting protagonist. I particularly liked her pull to power, I would have liked this to have been explored further. Alina believes it’s Morozova’s amplifiers that give her that want for more power, but I would suggest it stems from childhood feelings of powerlessness and weakness. Which is totally relatable! Each character holds some duality in them. Tolyar and Tamar are fiercely loyal but deceive Alina. Genya was Alina’s only ‘real’ friend but betrayed her. David did the Darkling’s bidding but then aided Alina. Not one character is wholly good or bad. This duality is highlighted by the two stand-out characters. Nikolai literally has two personas. The prince and the privateer. And like Alina, I could never quite decide what I made of the Darkling. He had such polarising moments that had me hating him and then wanting to root for him.

The ending, I felt was a little underwhelming. I really wanted to see Alina all-powerful but perhaps that was just me. Mal’s sacrifice had me all sorts of emotional, which was a little unexpected as I didn’t really warm to him as a character. It was also made a little less significant when he came back to life. But I don’t dislike that and it plays nicely into the religious theme running throughout. It was a bittersweet ending altogether, it just felt a little lack-lustre to me.

It’s a good story and a great introduction to the Grishaverse, and I am excited to see the Netflix adaptation.

Just my humble opinion.