Six of Crows Duology

One thing I love about reading is the ability to escape into a new world, a historical, place, an alternate reality…and this week I’ve been running around Ketterdam with Kaz and is gang of criminals.

My first Leigh Bardugo book was Shadow and Bone, a fantasy story about Grisha, people with magical powers.  For some reason I really didn’t connect with the story…too much fantasy language to learn, too much twisting alliances, and just not what I was in the mood for at the time.  But when I picked up Six of Crows, I didn’t even know it was in the same fantasy realm as her previous books.  I remember a friend calling it “a fantasy Ocean’s 11 heist story” and I was hooked.

Ketterdam, the capital city of Kerch, is run by crooked politicians, organized street gangs, and money (I always imagined it as an early industrial-age England).  No one understands the city’s underbelly more than Kaz, a seventeen year old ruthless lieutenant in the Dregs street gang.  His reputation as “Dirtyhands” has created a mythological air around him…and gotten him many enemies.  When a wealthy merchant approaches Kaz with the deal of a lifetime, he can’t refuse.  He only has to find a crazy crew, infiltrate another country’s capital, and break out a scientist who has created a drug that causes superhuman feats of strength.  No small task, but if anyone can do it, Kaz and his scheming friends can:  Inej’s acrobatic ability to go anywhere undetected, Jesper’s sharpshooter status, Nina’s heartrendering magic, Wylan’s pyrotechnics, and Mattias’ strength and inside knowledge.

The second book, Crooked Kingdom, picks up right where the first book leaves off (I dare you to just read one and not the other…), with Van Eck, the wealthy merchant, turning on Kaz.  Now Kaz and his crew are trapped in Ketterdam with the the police, multiple countries, and all the street gangs after them.  Like the first one, this well-thought out fantasy drama will keep you on your toes wondering how they will get out of trouble.

I think what I love best about this series is the author’s ability to make you feel like you know the city and the characters.  Even though Kaz is cold and calculating, you can’t help but admire his persistence and underlaying good deeds.  His gang is supposed to be the criminals of the story, but the way Bardugo writes it, you are rooting for them to win.  It’s like the Harry Potter series; you get so invested in the story and the characters that you ache when the story is through because you know there’s no more.

This book is a YA book, but I’d say it has more high school content to it.  There is (obviously) lots of violence, but there’s also multiple sexual innuendos along with one character being kidnapped and forced into prostitution.  It’s not so much a major part of the major storyline, but just wanted you to know what you’re getting into before you pass it on to your favorite fantasy lover.