A review by haloblues
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s been a solid few years since I really read something from the Young Adult genre, but I’d heard all the hype about this one from other adults - and within the first ten chapters I knew it would live up to it.

My thoughts on this one are far more scattered than normal because I devoured it and then jumped straight onto the sequel, but for what they’re worth:
- I loved Jesper from the first scene he was in. Instant favourite.
- I also loved Kaz’s snark. Dry, deadpan wit will never fail to endear me to characters.
- Introducing the guard in the prologue only to have him turn up dead and have the reader recognise him from his moustache even while he’s a stranger to the viewpoint character did such a good job of humanising a minor character and making me feel for the death of someone I usually wouldn’t take note of. That was great, and actually not something I’ve seen before in a book.
- I was spoiled on Jesper and Wylan’s relationship in the next book so I was looking out for signs of it, and GOSH. The “every time” scene after the handover was amazing.
- Jesper being a Grisha! I wasn’t expecting that at all, but it worked so well. He’s the main character in my heart, man. It’s exactly the sort of alternate universe concept I would’ve come up with for fun in any other fandom, and for once I don’t have to because it’s canon. God bless you Leigh Bardugo.

Favourite quotes:
The only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too.


“Doesn’t matter much now, does it?” replied Geels. “This gets ugly, I’m shooting from close range. Maybe your guards get me or my guys, but no way you’re going to dodge this bullet.”

Kaz stepped into the barrel of the gun so that it was pressed directly against his chest. “No way at all, Geels.”

“You think I won’t do it?”

“Oh, I think you’d do it gladly, with a song in your black heart. But you won’t. Not tonight.”

Geels’ finger twitched on the trigger.

“Kaz,” Jesper said. “This whole ‘shoot me’ thing is starting to concern me.”


“You’ll get what’s coming to you some day, Brekker.”

“I will,” said Kaz, “if there’s any justice in the world. And we all know how likely that is.”


“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”


“Greed is your god, Kaz.”

He almost laughed at that. “No, Inej. Greed bows to me. It is my servant and my lever.”

“And what god do you serve, then?”

“Whichever will grant me good fortune.”

“I don’t think gods work that way.”

“I don’t think I care.”


“The Barrel is a den of filth, vice, violence—”

“How many of the ships you send sailing out of the Ketterdam harbours never return?”

“That doesn’t—”

“One out of five, Van Eck. One out of every five vessels you send seeking coffee and jurda and bolts of silk sinks to the bottom of the sea, crashes on the rocks, falls prey to pirates. One out of five crews dead, their bodies lost to foreign waters, food for deep sea fishes. Let’s not speak of violence.”


“Kaz convinced Per Haskell to pay off my indenture. I would have died at the Menagerie.”

“You may still die in the Dregs.”

Inej’s dark eyes had glinted. “I may. But I’ll die on my feet with a knife in my hand.”


“Being angry at Kaz for being ruthless is like being angry at a stove for being hot.”


Kaz leaned back. “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?”

“Knife to the throat?” asked Inej.

“Gun to the back?” said Jesper.

“Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina.

“You’re all horrible,” said Matthias.


Inej traced her finger over the rough sketch Wylan had produced, a series of embedded circles. “It really does look like the rings of a tree,” she said.

“No,” said Kaz. “It looks like a target.”


“Shall I tell you the secret of true love?” her father once asked her. “A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother’s porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums.”

“That’s Mama!” Inej had cried.

“Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same colour, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But some day you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favourite flower, your favourite song, your favourite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.”


“Do you know how to shoot?”

Wylan nodded slowly. “Skeet.”

Jesper rolled his eyes. He snagged the rifle from his back and shoved it into Wylan’s chest. “Great. This is just like shooting clay pigeons, but they make a different sound when you hit one.”


Kaz turned to Jesper. “Fit Helvar with some shackles to keep him honest,” he said as he headed below. “And get me clean clothes and fresh water.”

“Since when am I your valet?”

“Man with a knife, remember?” he said over his shoulder.

“Man with a gun!” Jesper called after him.

Kaz replied with a time-saving gesture that relied heavily on his middle finger and disappeared belowdecks.


“We enter from the north as planned,” Kaz said.

Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”

Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”

“My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.


“Nina Zenik, as soon as I figure out where you’ve put my knives, we’re going to have words.”

“The first ones had better be ‘Thank you, oh great Nina, for dedicating every waking moment of this miserable journey to saving my sorry life.’”

Jesper expected Inej to laugh and was startled when she took Nina’s face between her hands and said, “Thank you for keeping me in this world when fate seemed determined to drag me to the next. I owe you a life debt.”

Nina blushed deeply. “I was teasing, Inej.” She paused. “I think we’ve both had enough of debts.”

“This is one I’m glad to bear.”

“Okay, okay. When we’re back in Ketterdam, take me out for waffles.”

Now Inej did laugh. She dropped her hands and appeared to speculate. “Dessert for a life? I’m not sure that seems equitable.”

“I expect really good waffles.”

“I know just the place,” said Jesper. “They have this apple syrup—”

“You’re not invited,” Nina said.


“Kaz is… I don’t know, he’s like nobody else I’ve ever known. He surprises me.”

“Yes. Like a hive of bees in your dresser drawer.”


Jesper consulted his compass, and they turned south, seeking a path that would lead them to the main trading road. “I’m going to pay someone to burn my kruge for me.”

Kaz fell into step beside him. “Why don’t you pay someone else to pay someone to burn your kruge for you? That’s what the big players do.”

“You know what the really big bosses do? They pay someone to pay someone to…”


“Oh, I see. I’m the wicked Grisha seductress. I have beguiled you with my Grisha wiles!”

She poked him in the chest.

“Stop that.”

“No. I’m beguiling you.”

“Quit it.”

She danced around him in the snow, poking his chest, his stomach, his side. “Goodness! You’re very solid. This is strenuous work.” He started to laugh. “It’s working! The beguiling has begun. The Fjerdan has fallen. You are powerless to resist me.”


Kaz was usually unshakeable during a job, but now he was on edge, and Jesper didn’t know why. Part of him wanted to ask, though he knew that was the stupid part, the hopeful farmboy who picked the worst possible person to care about, who searched for signs in things that he knew deep down meant nothing – when Kaz chose him for a job, when Kaz played along with one of his jokes. He could have kicked himself. He’d finally seen the infamous Kaz Brekker without a stitch of clothing, and he’d been too worried about ending up on a pike to pay proper attention.


“If only you could talk to girls in equations.”

There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they’d created in the link, Wylan said, “Just girls?”

Jesper restrained a grin. “No. Not just girls.”


He smiled, a smile as cold and unforgiving as the northern sea.


There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.


A rumbling began from somewhere in the direction of the Ice Court.

“Oh, Saints, please let that be Jesper,” she pleaded as they pulled themselves over the lip of the gorge and looked back at the bridge festooned with ribbons and ash boughs for Hringkälla.

“Whatever is coming, it’s big,” said Matthias.

“What do we do, Kaz?”

“Wait,” he said as the sound grew louder.

“How about ‘take cover’?” Nina asked, bouncing nervously from foot to foot. “‘Have heart’? ‘I stashed twenty rifles in this convenient shrubbery’? Give us something.”

“How about a few million kruge?” said Kaz.

A tank rumbled over the hill, dust and gravel spewing from its treads. Someone was waving to them from its gun turret – no, two someones. Inej and Wylan were yelling and gesturing wildly from behind the dome.

Nina let out a victorious whoop as Matthias stared in disbelief. When Nina looked at Kaz, she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. “Saints, Kaz, you actually look happy.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. But there was no mistaking it. Kaz Brekker was grinning like an idiot.


“I didn’t think you’d let those men live, back at the harbour.”

“I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. I’ll become one more Grisha horror story for them to tell their children.”

“Behave or Nina Zenik will get you?”

Nina considered. “Well, I do like the sound of that.”


“I didn’t hide.”

“You… how many times was it you standing beside me on the deck at night when I thought it was Kuwei?”

“Every time.”
 
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