Six of Crows
It’s not a secret that I like to read books about gangs and thieves. Why, I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the thrill, the fun schemes and living life in a tight-knit group who has your back. Naturally, Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows intrigued me when I first heard of it but it has taken me some time to get around to actually read it but I’m glad I finally did.
Kaz Brekker is well known for many things, not least his nickname, Dirtyhands. He takes even the toughest jobs and he always get them done, but now he’s in for a big one. After being sought out by a rich merchant Kaz agrees to assemble a crew and break a man out of prison, a man who concocted a drug which has the potential to ruin the entire world. If they manages to pull the job off they’ll never have to worry about money ever again, but it also means that they have to break into the Ice Court, which has never successfully been breach. And while Kaz is used to pull off tough jobs, this one will put a target on his back and his enemies to crowd around him.
This is a fast-paced novel set in a fictional world, mostly in Ketterdam and the neighboring country Fjerda. Bardugo spins a tale of Kaz Brekker, thief and lieutenant in a gang called the Dregs, and the little crew of five he brings with him on this mad endeavor. They all come from different places and are all diverse in both looks and upbringings. I thought it was fun that no character was the same or came from the same place. Often in books, it’s easiest if the characters all grow up in the same town or at least the same country, but this was not the case with Six of Crows. Instead, every character has their own story to tell, their own corner in the world which they came from and that most of them want to return to at some point.
The story is told in third person with alternating chapters to five of the six main characters which gives the reader a thorough view of everything that happens along the way. We also get to look back into the past of a few characters which helps to understand their motives and how they ended up trying to break into a place that is known to be unable to breach. It was fun to get to look into what happened before the book started, to take a break in everything that happens now and to see what happened then.
As I said, the characters are all different. Kaz is cold and calculating and has a deep darkness in his past that he tries to satisfy with revenge. Inej is a Suli girl who was stolen away from her parents by slavers and sold to a pleasure house where she worked until the Dregs bought her and now she works as Kaz’s Wraith, gathering information for him. Jesper came to Ketterdam to study but got caught in serious gambling debts and started working with the Dregs because of that. Nina is a Grisha who tries to stay free of slavers and Fjerdan soldiers and stays with and around the Dregs for their protection. Matthias is a former soldier for Fjerda that Nina got tossed into jail and then liberated, a man who no longer knows were his true allegiances lie.
All these characters come from different parts of the world Bardugo created; Suli, Fjerda, Ravka and so on. They all have different skin color, values, religious beliefs and some shows tendencies to be homosexual, or at least bi. It is, in other words, a book that covers pretty much everyone. It’s written in a way that’s both tense and fun, leaving the reader worried at times and laughing at others. Bardugo is quite raw when she describes certain events, something I liked, but has a knack for saying a lot with just a few gestures and looks from the characters. A big part of the story was what the characters do, not what they say and that another thing I liked.
It is a story centered around the prison break out but between that a lot of things happens. Six of Crows is full of amazing sidestories that just add to the big picture rather than making me confused. It’s packed with action and crazy schemes and plans that isn’t for the fainthearted in any way. I wondered more than once if they would actually get away with what they were planning. However, it wasn’t too much or too crazy, just the right amount of weird and nervewrecking.
However, there were some things in the beginning of the novel that I would’ve had liked to be explained a bit more. It took me a while to realize that Kaz in fact wasn’t a boss of his own gang but rather a lieutenant in someone else’s. The names of different gangs and places confused me as well, before I really got into the story. I would’ve liked it to be a bit clearer but I got around to it all after a while.
I have to say that Six of Crows reminded me more than a little of Scott Lynch’s The Gentlemen Bastard series. It was a different author and a different world with different rules but the basic was the same and I loved it. People who knows me knows that I adore The Lies of Locke Lamora and the rest of the books as well and so this seemed like a nice fit to me. If you have read something of Lynch then I think Six of Crows will be a perfect for you. And if you haven’t – what are you waiting for? Read Six of Crows, read The Lies of Locke Lamora as well and marvel at the amazing adventures that’s out there, ours for the taking.
Kaz Brekker is well known for many things, not least his nickname, Dirtyhands. He takes even the toughest jobs and he always get them done, but now he’s in for a big one. After being sought out by a rich merchant Kaz agrees to assemble a crew and break a man out of prison, a man who concocted a drug which has the potential to ruin the entire world. If they manages to pull the job off they’ll never have to worry about money ever again, but it also means that they have to break into the Ice Court, which has never successfully been breach. And while Kaz is used to pull off tough jobs, this one will put a target on his back and his enemies to crowd around him.
This is a fast-paced novel set in a fictional world, mostly in Ketterdam and the neighboring country Fjerda. Bardugo spins a tale of Kaz Brekker, thief and lieutenant in a gang called the Dregs, and the little crew of five he brings with him on this mad endeavor. They all come from different places and are all diverse in both looks and upbringings. I thought it was fun that no character was the same or came from the same place. Often in books, it’s easiest if the characters all grow up in the same town or at least the same country, but this was not the case with Six of Crows. Instead, every character has their own story to tell, their own corner in the world which they came from and that most of them want to return to at some point.
The story is told in third person with alternating chapters to five of the six main characters which gives the reader a thorough view of everything that happens along the way. We also get to look back into the past of a few characters which helps to understand their motives and how they ended up trying to break into a place that is known to be unable to breach. It was fun to get to look into what happened before the book started, to take a break in everything that happens now and to see what happened then.
As I said, the characters are all different. Kaz is cold and calculating and has a deep darkness in his past that he tries to satisfy with revenge. Inej is a Suli girl who was stolen away from her parents by slavers and sold to a pleasure house where she worked until the Dregs bought her and now she works as Kaz’s Wraith, gathering information for him. Jesper came to Ketterdam to study but got caught in serious gambling debts and started working with the Dregs because of that. Nina is a Grisha who tries to stay free of slavers and Fjerdan soldiers and stays with and around the Dregs for their protection. Matthias is a former soldier for Fjerda that Nina got tossed into jail and then liberated, a man who no longer knows were his true allegiances lie.
All these characters come from different parts of the world Bardugo created; Suli, Fjerda, Ravka and so on. They all have different skin color, values, religious beliefs and some shows tendencies to be homosexual, or at least bi. It is, in other words, a book that covers pretty much everyone. It’s written in a way that’s both tense and fun, leaving the reader worried at times and laughing at others. Bardugo is quite raw when she describes certain events, something I liked, but has a knack for saying a lot with just a few gestures and looks from the characters. A big part of the story was what the characters do, not what they say and that another thing I liked.
It is a story centered around the prison break out but between that a lot of things happens. Six of Crows is full of amazing sidestories that just add to the big picture rather than making me confused. It’s packed with action and crazy schemes and plans that isn’t for the fainthearted in any way. I wondered more than once if they would actually get away with what they were planning. However, it wasn’t too much or too crazy, just the right amount of weird and nervewrecking.
However, there were some things in the beginning of the novel that I would’ve had liked to be explained a bit more. It took me a while to realize that Kaz in fact wasn’t a boss of his own gang but rather a lieutenant in someone else’s. The names of different gangs and places confused me as well, before I really got into the story. I would’ve liked it to be a bit clearer but I got around to it all after a while.
I have to say that Six of Crows reminded me more than a little of Scott Lynch’s The Gentlemen Bastard series. It was a different author and a different world with different rules but the basic was the same and I loved it. People who knows me knows that I adore The Lies of Locke Lamora and the rest of the books as well and so this seemed like a nice fit to me. If you have read something of Lynch then I think Six of Crows will be a perfect for you. And if you haven’t – what are you waiting for? Read Six of Crows, read The Lies of Locke Lamora as well and marvel at the amazing adventures that’s out there, ours for the taking.