Tag: author-leigh bardugo

Sequel to Six of Crows. Picks up very smoothly where the previous one left off, except now you know the characters… or so you think. Bardugo uncovers new depths in each of the characters, allowing them growth and development in believable and well-founded ways, while still rolling the plot along at a crazy pace. I loved the action and the pacing, the chemistry between the cast members was excellent, and the banter was delightful.

Oh man this was such an awesome read, way better than Shadow and Bone (though I’m glad I read that one first, if only so that I knew some of the Grishaverse terminology). In this heist novel, the action comes first, and characters are built alongside the action, which moves everything along much more smoothly. The conflicted rogue is also one of my favorite character archetypes, and there are TONS of them in this one. Each character in the squad has backstory that is explored gradually throughout the book, which builds on their awesome dynamics. The tension is kept at great levels; the heist is complicated and full of twists, but not so much that the book lost momentum explaining it. And even though the ending is cliffhanger-y, I can’t be disappointed; it was such a fun ride to get there. (Six weeks for the next one to come off the hold list? Noooooo)

It finally came off the hold list and… I waited sixteen weeks for this? It was perfectly okay, but oh so tropey: a combination of country bumpkin magic user goes to school (cue the usual leveling-up montage of exposition-filled classes, professor stereotypes – I think one of them is even Kung Fu Man!, fish-out-of-water insecurity, and petty student feuding), Sailormoon heroine (with great power comes great naivete), and inevitable teen drama love triangle (I continue to be uncomfortable with books that posit that jealousy and possessiveness are hallmarks of epic romance, instead of being creepy and borderline abusive). Oh and the obsession with beauty = power comes across as super shallow and unfortunate. There is some legitimately cool worldbuilding potential (a literal void filled with monsters, blocking trade and travel? Think of the possibilities!) and a plot twist midway through the book that honestly took me by surprise… but mostly, meh. I have heard though that the duology is better, so maybe once Bardugo worked all of the tropes out of her system, she did a better job with this honestly cool world concept? I put Six of Crows on hold, we’ll see what I think of it in [checks library prediction] four months.