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Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)

Leigh Bardugo

Start date: October 1, 2016

Finish date: October 31, 2016

Discussion: Series

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Jul 24, 2017 Kathryn rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, fantasy

“Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

How do I even begin? The hallmark of a truly great series is that after it ends, you feel a genuine sense of loss. Of grief. The players involved are no longer characters, they’re more like old friends. And their absence? Their absence leaves a distinct hole in the center of your being. And that’s precisely how I feel about Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology.

“Or do you want Van Eck t “Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

How do I even begin? The hallmark of a truly great series is that after it ends, you feel a genuine sense of loss. Of grief. The players involved are no longer characters, they’re more like old friends. And their absence? Their absence leaves a distinct hole in the center of your being. And that’s precisely how I feel about Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology.

“Or do you want Van Eck to be glad he picked a bunch of nobodies from the barrel to scam? Because no one else is going to get him for us. No one else is going to care that he cheated us or that we risked our lives for nothing. No one else is going to make this right. So I’m asking, do you want to beat Van Eck?”

Crooked Kingdom picks up mere days after Six of Crow’s ending. We open in Ketterdam where Kaz and crew are feverishly working to rescue Inej and reclaim the fortune promised by the villainous, double-crossing merchant Jan Van Eck. But money’s not first and foremost on Kaz Brekker’s mind. What could mean more to a criminal prodigy than cash? REVENGE.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Hanna. The really bad monsters never look like monsters.”

In this installment, Leigh Bardugo resumes the skillful worldbuilding begun in book one. The mean streets of Ketterdam are fleshed out in all their dark, corrupt glory. As the reader wanders through the Barrel’s seediest alleys, the ever-present gloom becomes pervasive. Perspective continues to rotate among crew members with Wylan finally given a voice. Bardugo uses the alternating narrator device to transform what could have been stock, heist characters into flawed, complex individuals. Backstories continue to unfurl giving the tale added depth.

But what Bardugo is perhaps most gifted at is creating a balanced storyline. Grittiness and tragedy are contrasted with sprinkles of humor. Jesper, the most quick-witted of the bunch, is often effectively utilized as comic-relief:

“I would prefer to go to Ravka.”
"I’d prefer a pair of sable-lined swimming trunks,” said Jesper. “But we can’t always get what we want.”

While hell is descending on Ketterdam, each gang member is wrestling their own personal demons. Lives are at risk. Futures unsteady. The world is on the brink of disaster. But all-consuming darkness is prevented with this sort of abundant snark and whipsmart dialogue.

"Where do you think the money went?” he repeated.
"Guns?" Asked Jesper
"Ships?" Queried Inej.
"Bombs?" Suggested Wylan.
"Political bribes?" Offered Nina
They all looked at Matthias.
“This is where you tell us how awful we are.” she whispered.
He shrugged. "They all seem like practical choices to me."

Kaz’s crew function as characters both individually and together. But, in Crooked Kingdom, it’s the friendships formed and relationships built that are the true highlight. The Ice Court heist has clearly bonded the group--there’s been a clear evolution-- and it’s those relationships that drive the narrative.

[He] summoned every bit of bravado he’d learned from Nina, the will he’d learned from Matthias, the focus he’d studied in Kaz, the courage he’d learned from Inej, and the wild, reckless hope he’d learned from Jesper, the belief that no matter the odds, somehow they would win.

This ragtag gang with limited parental influence has transformed into a sort of substitute family. No longer just criminal cohorts--each looking out for their own best interests--now, they’re each other’s support, protection, and inspiration. And for several of them, Kaz and Wylan especially, that bond cannot be overestimated.

“I would come for you, he said…..I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together--knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”

But of course, the relationship I’ve always loved most is between Kaz and Inej. All Six of Crow’s burgeoning romances continue to blossom here. And really, I’m a fan of each. But Kaz and Inej own my heart. They just….fit together. Fill each other’s empty spaces. Broken pieces aligning in such a way that when together they become whole. And yes, part of that is their mutually traumatic histories.

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again.

But what’s great about Kaz and Inej is that they save EACH OTHER. Inej, despite being rescued from The Menagerie by Kaz, maintains personal agency. In fact, a large part of Kaz’s underworld success is due to her. They’re equals in the very best way. Believe me, this ain’t no damsel-in-distress story. It’s simply a case of two damaged, complicated people finding home in each other.

That being said, I still want to scream in frustration because there’s just so much left unsaid between the two. So many passages where I desperately want to leap in and shout at Kaz: SAY THE THING. JUST SAY IT. Stop allowing Inej to mistake your intentions. Yet that’s what makes them so great. The tension.

“I wasn’t made to be a hero, Wraith. You should have learned that by now. You want me to be the better man, a good man….”
This city doesn’t need a good man. It needs you.”

As for Kaz? Kaz remains as deliciously complicated as ever. Yes, there’s clear character growth, but Kaz will never be a puppies and sunshine character. He’ll never fully reform. That’s not his nature. And frankly, it’s an unrealistic expectation. Kaz’s greatness lies in his ability to straddle good and bad, while never tipping too far either way. Bardugo loves to flop around in the gray areas. She’s clearly no fan of black and white morality. But what she does slyly point out is that there’s a clear distinction between Kaz and the Pekka Rollins of the world.

“We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.”

The Six of Crows duology could’ve easily been a one-note story, but Bardugo’s accessible language, intricate characterization, layered worldbuilding, and perfect tonal alchemy transformed it into something wholly unique. It’s rare that I’ve been this sad to see a book end. To no longer be party to Kaz Brekker’s machinations, laugh at Jesper’s quips, or admire Inej’s daring seems unutterably cruel. Tonight the streets of Ketterdam are empty. Leigh Bardugo brought me on a whirlwind tour, my passport was stamped, but now I’m home. How I so long to return.

...more

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May 09, 2017 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, young-adult-teen-new-adult, library-has-a-copy, fantasy-science-fiction, best-books-read-in-2017

After the sheer awesomeness that was Six of Crows, I wasn't sure how, if at all, Leigh was going to top herself with Crooked Kingdom. But top herself she did! This picks up not too long after where things ended in the previous book. With Inej kidnapped and the entire team double crossed by Van Eck. Kaz being Kaz isn't about to take this laying down and is utterly furious at Van Eck. He's been feverishly working on a plan to rescue Inej and get back at Van Eck. First up on the agenda is, of cours After the sheer awesomeness that was Six of Crows, I wasn't sure how, if at all, Leigh was going to top herself with Crooked Kingdom. But top herself she did! This picks up not too long after where things ended in the previous book. With Inej kidnapped and the entire team double crossed by Van Eck. Kaz being Kaz isn't about to take this laying down and is utterly furious at Van Eck. He's been feverishly working on a plan to rescue Inej and get back at Van Eck. First up on the agenda is, of course, the rescue of Inej. After gathering intel and putting the pieces together, Kaz forms a plan all right and in typical Kaz fashion, it's a bit over the top and just nutty enough to work. At least what we know of it. I love that Leigh only told us part of the plan and let the rest of it unspool right in front of the reader's eyes. It's brash, crazy, very cool and the team has some interesting adventures while planning it out and it's, of course, ultimately successful. But not without a few interesting twists that end up playing a big part in the story. And boy, do they manage to piss Van Eck off. With Inej safely back with the team, now Kaz turns his eye to getting revenge on Van Eck. And of course, keeping Kuwei Yul-Bo with his knowledge of how to make jurda parem out of the hands of those who want its secrets. And keeping the exact knowledge of jurda parem away from the many very interested parties who want to unleash it on the world and the Grisha. Easy, right? Well, Kaz and the Dregs will make it all look easy. But as we all know, looks can be deceiving. In brief, Kaz's plan is to bankrupt and utterly discredit Van Eck by destroying large caches of sugar that he keeps in silos with a nifty little chemical compound that Wylan has come up. Unbeknownst to Van Eck, Kaz has been buying up shares of sugar in his name. Now, under normal circumstances, the loss of the sugar would be a blow, but not one that Van Eck couldn't recover from. However, when the other merchants find out he's been buying up sugar shares and therefore is seemingly profiting from the loss of the sugar stored in those silos, well, then they'll be calling for his head on a platter. And he'll be finished. And the Dregs will become very, very rich by selling off those sugar shares. Fast forward to Inej going from silo to silo, dumping that chemical compound in and all seemingly going to plan. Until. Until a third party enters the game. An assassin named Dunyasha who is in the employ of Pekka Rollins. She attempts to shove Inej into the silo, but Inej narrowly regains her balance and avoids falling and then she and Dunyasha square off. Much to Inej's dismay, Dunyasha is better trained and easily gains the upper hand and releases the wire that Inej was using and Inej plummets to the ground. Or does she? That, I won't reveal. Obviously though, Kaz's carefully thought out plan has just gone totally belly up and it looks like they're finished. No money, Van Eck is still in business and their faces are on wanted posters plastered all over Ketterdam. What are they going to do? Weeeeelllll. I'm glad you asked. Because just when it looks like they're done, Kaz comes up with another plan. And if you thought his other plans were outrageous and audacious and just crazy enough to work? This one is flat out insane. He's going to stage an auction and auction Kuwei off to the highest bidder. Of course, there is a bit more to it than that. Namely, Kaz plans to fix the auction so that Kuwei is "won" by Ravka. Ravka has been largely bankrupted by the civil wars of the Grisha trilogy and also general mismanagement. Kaz plans for the Kerch Merchant Council to bankroll Ravka by setting up a jurda consortium that they will all chip into. Now, of course, no such consortium will actually exist. All the money will be funneled to Ravka so that they can bid for Kuwei. And Kuwei will have his freedom. Simple, right? C'mon. This is Kaz and the Dregs. Nothing is ever simple with this group. Leigh lets us in on only the broad sketches of the plan and lets the rest unfurl right in front of the reader's eyes. There's some utterly fantastic twists and turns that I most definitely did not see coming and that I absolutely loved. Just when it seems like things have gone south, nope, it's all part of Kaz's insane plan. I positively loved the plot on every level! It was so multilayered with great twists and turns and kept me on my metaphorical toes. And the characters were awesome as well. Leigh developed them even more and let us know a lot more about them and really dug into who they are. She made them so much more than a mere gang of antiheroes. I honestly loved them all and if pressed, I would say my favorite character is Kaz. I find his character to be the most fascinating. And that's saying something in light of how utterly fascinating I found everyone else. I really wish that Leigh had given us a slightly less ambiguous ending in regards to where things stand with Inej and Kaz romantically, but I will admit that how she does leave things does fit the nature of Inej and Kaz's relationship quite well. And I found myself mostly content with where Leigh left things, both romantically and not, for the characters. But man, oh man, I really hope she visits these characters and this world again! All in all, I utterly loved this book and I thought it was a great wrap up to the Six of Crows duology and I am so glad that I persevered with Leigh's writing. I can honestly say that I will never read the Grisha trilogy again and I'm glad I borrowed all the books from the library. But this duology? I may very well read it again someday and I may actually buy the books. ...more

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