Hi ForeverBookers,
I’m sorry that I haven’t been here in a while! It’s taken me a while to read “Six Of Crows!” And I’m currently about half way in another book that I was reading before “Six Of Crows.” I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either, hence my 3 star rating. It was just very mediocre for me.
3 Stars!
I read “Six of Crows” for a few readathons/reading challenges, which were:
* Reading Rivalry - Read a book that has multiple series set in the same world - The Grisha world has the orginal Grisha trilogy, the “Six Of Crows” duology, and the King Of Scars duology. Also reading “Six Of Crows” gave bonus points as it’s what this months Reading Rivalry was based around.
* A Buddyread - I did a buddyread with a friend who lives in Canada. We discussed the book as we read it. It was a reread for her and a first time read for me.
* The Cardcaptor-a-thon - I read “Six Of Crows” for The Glow, read a book that you’re excited to read. I was excited to read it because I wanted and still want to watch the TV show!
* Popsugar 2021 Reading Challenge - A book with a black and white cover - I know “Six Of Crows” technically has red and grey on the cover too, but it’s my challenge, right? It’s mainly a black and white cover, so I’m counting it!
Spoilers below...
We start “Six Of Crows” with characters called Joost and Anya. Joost loves Anya, a Grisha, but can’t be with her because they’re separated by class systems. As I said, Anya is a Grisha and Joost is a soldier.
“Sometimes Joost liked to pretend that it was his house, that he was a rich mercher just out for a stroll through his fine garden.” Joost likes to pretend that he is a rich mercher with a mansion to live in, like some of the Grisha.
Anya is a Corporalki, a Grisha who can control the human body. She can make people feel better if they’re ill or mend a broken bone etc.
“But that couldn’t be. Grisha Corporalki specialized in the human body. They could stop your heart, slow your breathing, snap your bones. They couldn’t get inside your head.” This is significant because it explains what happens at the beginning of the book. Anya has gotten inside a boys head to make him do evil things. This then made me question if Anya was good or indeed evil. Unfortunately this isn’t rectified of spoken of in the rest of the book. Crooked Kingdom should wrap it up, I suppose but that’s at least something I’d liked to have seen in this book, just some answers. I feel as if we got nothing.
The main story with our four main characters, Kaz, Inej, Nina and Matthias then starts.
“To say he trusted Inej would be stretching the point, but he could admit to himself that he’d come to rely on her. It had been a gut decision to pay off her indenture with the Menagerie, and it had cost the Dregs sorely. Per Haskell had needed convincing, but Inej was one of the best investments Kaz had ever made. That she was so very good at remaining unseen made her an excellent thief of secrets, the best in the Barrel. But the fact that she could simply erase herself bothered him...She’d somehow mastered invisibility. She was a valuable asset. So why couldn’t she just do her job and spare him her moods.”
Kaz relies on Inej. She’s his spider, or acrobat. She can get herself into places normal people can’t. She’s Kaz’s wraith, and he uses that nickname for her a lot throughout the book. He also cares about her a lot. Inej was a part of the Menagerie, basically a sex club. Kaz got her out of that by telling the boss, Tante Heleen that he needed her skills. Tante Heleen wasn’t happy about this but did Kaz or dirtyhands care? Hell, no! I admired this trait of Kaz. That he’d do anything for those he cared about!
Kaz gets captured outside the Crow Club, where he lives and is the leader of the Dregs. He’s captured by Jan Van Eck, a character we’re not sure about until the end of the book. Van Eck wants Kaz to perform a heist in the Ice Court, and get the creator of jurda parem, a drug used to control Grisha out of the prison there. Why? You’ll need to read to find out! This is the main plot point of the book!
“Thirty million kruge,” Kaz said.
“We said twenty!” sputtered Van Eck.
“You said twenty. It’s clear your desperate.” Kaz glanced back in. the direction of the boathouse, where a room full of men simply waited to die. “And now I see why.”
“The Council will have my head.”
“They’ll sing your praises once you have Bo Yul-Bayur safely hidden away wherever you intend to keep him.”
“Novyi Zem.”
Kaz shrugged. “You can keep him in a coffeepot for all I care.”
Kaz clearly needs a crew to pull off this impossible task. One of the people he hires is Inej, of course, as she can get into places that no other can. Also he hires Nina, a different Corporalki, Matthias, a criminal who was wrongly imprisoned, Jesper, a gambler, as well as a couple of others along the way. According to the TV show Jesper is a character of colour but I didn’t see this written in the book. I enjoyed reading about the characters, though, although I thought that the book needed A LOT more plot. I normally enjoy character driven stories but this one was slower than most for me. Most of the book was travelling to the Ice. Court, I found and while this was okay, it got to be a little bit tedious to read.
“But if Kaz had any hope of getting into the Ice Court, he needed the right crew, and the next hour’s business would bring him a step closer to securing two very vital pieces of the puzzle.”
My favourite parts were the relationship dynamics between Nina and Matthias and Inej and Kaz, three people of the crew as well as Kaz. I LOVE romance in my books, as you’ll know if you’ve read any of my other reviews so this isn’t surprising, I don’t think. I just loved the tension between both couples. I hope we get some intimate scenes in Crooked Kingdom! Nina is my favourite character too. I saw myself the most in her. She’d do whatever for the cause that she believes in. The last thing she does in the book is risky for her but she does it because she knows it’s the only way to get out of the situation she and her crew are in.
I don’t really want to spoil any of the actual plot because there was so little of it. I did somewhat enjoy “Six Of Crows,” but I thought it could have been better if some scenes were taken out and more plot points were put in, instead. As I said above, I’d have liked for Anya and Joost to re-enter the plot but that might happen in Crooked Kingdom, I don’t know. I won’t be reading Crooked Kingdom yet because for season 1 of the TV show, it’s okay to just read “Six Of Crows.” You don’t need to read Crooked Kingdom a friend tells me.
Have you read “Six Of Crows?” What did you think if you have? Are you watching the TV show too?
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