The Novel Bakery

5/5 stars

For a Nina-inspired cake recipe, click here.

The Story:

Cruel mob boss Kaz Brekker has a new job: break into the most impenetrable prison ever built. Enlisting the help of five other criminals from the Ketterdam slums, the six are staging a heist that will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The journey strains Kaz, though, breaking through his armor to reveal a seventeen-year-old vulnerable boy with a haunting past.

Set in the Grisha Universe, Six of Crows takes place after the Grisha trilogy, though you wouldn’t need to read the trilogy to follow Six of Crows. I cringed when I realized the novel switched POV each chapter and alternated between several characters. I’ve seen it done poorly too many times. Bardugo, though, is a master! Despite having six main characters, each is dynamic and fully fleshed out.

Have you seen the cover reveal for the sequel, Crooked Kingdom?? September can’t come fast enough! How are her covers always so beautiful?

 

Spoilers begin here. You have been warned. 

Favorite trait from each member of the crew:

Nina: Nina’s an interesting character. She brings a sense of delicacy to the group, probably because of her upbringing in the Little Palace. She’s not delicate, though. She’s on occasion crude, certainly witty, and has a penchant for sweets which I can get behind.

Mathias: He’s so stalwart in his loyalty to his country, but once he recognizes that what they’re doing is wrong, it’s not as though he loses that sense of honor, it just gets redirected.

Wylan: Interestingly, Wylan’s is the only POV not represented in the novel and I’m intrigued what sort of twist that’s going to lead to in the next installment. We still get a good look at him through others’ eyes and he adds an innocence to the group that the others lack. He’s had enough struggles, though, that it’s not naiveté.

Jasper: Jasper had a major turning point near the end of the novel and I’m curious to see what he will do in Crooked Kingdom. He’s the adrenaline junky and runner, but he’s learning to stand and fight for better reasons than the rush.

Kaz: Frightening.

The boy they called Dirtyhands didn’t need a reason any more than he needed permission—to break a leg, sever an alliance, or change a man’s fortunes with the turn of a card.

So prickly that it’s heartbreaking, even in dire situations. After seeing Inej nearly killed, he still doesn’t crack.

Inej: “You came back for me”

“I protect my investments.”

In the brief window that his defenses crumble, his vulnerability puts Inej in danger and she’s captured. What will this do to Kaz’s character by the next book?

Inej: I love her physical and internal strength. Inej has to do some awful things to survive the slums. She adapts and does what she needs to, but she doesn’t become jaded. She regrets anytime she has to kill someone, regrets how her actions would affect her family. The most revealing scene for her is when she’s climbing the incinerator shaft and in that moment of despair and defeat she pulls herself up physically, but also symbolically as she realizes she can serve a much bigger purpose.