From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

Leigh Bardugo

Start date: November 22, 2015

Finish date: November 30, 2015

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What Members Thought

Aug 04, 2017 Anne OK rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads

NO WORDS I write can do justice or even begin to describe this new journey for me. Just WOW! Wore me out -- never saw this one coming -- genius twists and turns, dark and gritty.

I didn't think world building was for me - but I was wrong. I loved the details. Magical and fascinating.

The characters - the plotting - their world. And Kaz -- once again no words. His character was a total surprise -- he actually stole my heart. Inej and Nina were so solid -- GIRL POWER!

Everything depended on six teena ...more

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May 26, 2019 Vickie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: booksthatmakemegowow, keeper-shelf

This book is going on the 'Keeper Shelf'. It is AMAZING! And I found out about the book while looking at t-shirts on a site called Out of Print. Ordered the t-shirt and looked up and ordered the book. It's part of what's called the GrishaVerse, seven books. This is part of a duology. Second one, CROOKED KINGDOM, is already ordered and on its way. I will go back to the beginning and read SHADOW AND BONE: Book One Shadow and Bone Trilogy. There also seem to be some novellas to read too.
It's been ...more

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Sep 15, 2019 joi. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, lgbtq

Hello everyone, and thank you for coming to my review of How to Be Gay and Do Crimes in Pretend Magic Victorian Amsterdam, starring my 6 morally gray genius children: Batman, Catwoman, Robin, Other Smaller Robin, Mr. Freeze, and Nina Zenik.

In this book, a criminal mastermind is hired by a regular criminal to steal a drug dealer from Frozen Alcatraz. He gathers together his 4 best friends and Mathias Helvar, and they set out on the single most romantic first date anyone could ever hope for. It i Hello everyone, and thank you for coming to my review of How to Be Gay and Do Crimes in Pretend Magic Victorian Amsterdam, starring my 6 morally gray genius children: Batman, Catwoman, Robin, Other Smaller Robin, Mr. Freeze, and Nina Zenik.

In this book, a criminal mastermind is hired by a regular criminal to steal a drug dealer from Frozen Alcatraz. He gathers together his 4 best friends and Mathias Helvar, and they set out on the single most romantic first date anyone could ever hope for. It includes: tanks, guns, ships, comeuppance, singing, wigs, murder, homicide, flutes, killing, birds, trees, people standing silently next to each other and being like "wtf bro???", fashion, mockery, investments, and repeated graphic descriptions of waffles. There is also a heist, but that is less important.

The writing in this book is so incredibly lush and evocative, you will get lost in the language! This book reads more like poetry than fiction, with such beautiful sentences as: "Maybe I liked your stupid face", "Nina?", "Where's my hat?", "You just have really ugly feet", and the oft-quoted classic "It's some kind of series of cables and bells".

Please know that if you read this book, there is one character you will ABSOLUTELY fall in love with and will never be able to forget. Dirix is swoon-worthy and he will instantly make you wish every person you meet could be like him, but DO NOT OBSESS OVER HIM. He ends up barely being in the book, even though he is clearly the Book Boyfriend we are all waiting for.

All in all, this is singularly the greatest work in all of American literature. It will leave you screaming obscenities at any copies of The Great Gatsby or The Whole30 Cookbook you own because they will never live up to the legacy of this book. My recommendation is to limit yourself to 30 minutes of screaming at your other books per day, otherwise your neighbors will begin to complain, and yes Janet, this part is about you STOP PUTTING YOUR GREEN WASTE IN MY BIN!

5 STARS - DID READ AGAIN immediately after I finished the duology for the first time. Will read again right now since I got the books out so I could reread those 5 incredible sentences about Dirix and dream of us raising a few nondescript kids together.

Thanks again for checking out this review. If it was helpful to you, please send a SASE to Jan van Eck with a note that just says 'WE HAVE YOUR DE KAPPEL', stabbed several times and with, like, a little devil face on it. He will LOVE that. ...more

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Apr 20, 2021 Amanda rated it liked it

Shelves: 3-stars, fiction, fantasy, format-kindle, format-audible, feminism, foreign-words-and-phrases

Spring 2020 (April);

'The Continuing Saga of Amanda Read All 9 Grishaverse Books in 26 Days'
(This review will span Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom)

Stars: 3.5

I'm seriously in the spring of all the things I've been told I'll love, I've found to be overhyped for one reason or another, and I'm sad to say I found it in this one, too. People had been saying for weeks (while I did my first 5 books in the Grishaverse Read, and others were starting theirs, too, pre-Shadow & Bone the tv series) that SoC/ Spring 2020 (April);

'The Continuing Saga of Amanda Read All 9 Grishaverse Books in 26 Days'
(This review will span Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom)

Stars: 3.5

I'm seriously in the spring of all the things I've been told I'll love, I've found to be overhyped for one reason or another, and I'm sad to say I found it in this one, too. People had been saying for weeks (while I did my first 5 books in the Grishaverse Read, and others were starting theirs, too, pre-Shadow & Bone the tv series) that SoC/CK was easier, faster, more fun, and better written. I wish I hadn't gone into it with those assumptions, really.

I blitzed straight into this book after The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic, and it took a while to catch my footing in this book. I can tell in so many places how much Bardugo has grown with each book from her first, to here (, all the way to the 9th book), but as with when you really master something, you try new things and you wobble like a baby bird on those.

Such was Bardugo's choice to leap from one POV to seven in each of these two books, wherein it often wasn't balanced, and it kept over and over and overdoing the thing that drove me nuts: prosaically telling you everything about each character's past in their chapters, but never having it revealed while talking to someone or in a situation, all telling, no showing, sharing, or building from the communal knowledge between them all.

Another the problem was pacing. Book one was so tight, and so fast, I felt like I left that book without a real idea of what made these people who they were; and then Book two just felt like it spooled on and on and on with no end in sight, except that my pages to read kept slowly and finally getting shorter. I felt like CK book was capitalizing on the popularity of the characters and SoC, but didn't have anything like the hijack hot-and-ready plot SoC did.

One of my ongoing winces when I look back at this book, is how "we have three people" = "we must pair off neatly and perfectly" = "we totally mastered all three (/then four) of these relationships existing on the same timetable." There's a lot of literature that is suspended disbelief, but this one was just a little too big, while it was happening with everyone involved with every chapter (except tha last one, of course). ...more

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Dec 23, 2017 Shala rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed the characters and plot of this story. The only reason it's not getting five stars is because I didn't like the ending. I know there is a second book, but I would have rather this one ended with everything wrapped up, but that's just a personal preference. ...more

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May 08, 2017 Beth rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, friend-bookclub, wobble, young-adult

Too much harm and danger to kids the age of my children for me to really enjoy. I bet I'd like it more in about five years. I recommended it to my kids though. ...more

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