Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom duology

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about this set in the Grishaverse. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed my time so far in the Grishaverse, but this set and I had a hard time seeing eye to eye.

I wanted it to live up to the hype so badly, especially so because I really enjoyed the Shadow & Bone trilogy, even the cursed second book that suffered from second book syndrome.

I actually really liked the Oceans 11 vibe that LB was going for in SoC. I thought the heist aspect was actually pretty interesting. One of my hesitations for diving in whole heartedly was that the characters seemed like they should be mid-twenties instead of teenagers. I really and truly can’t see them being in their teens with how they act.

I also felt like some of the descriptions and inner monologues felt clinical rather than emotional or described by the POV we were reading. Which, I hated how much we jumped from POV to POV. Really and truly, in CK, it felt like we saw the same bit of time over and over again because we saw it from multiple POVs. There was also a lot of telling instead of showing of backstories, particularly Kaz.

Speaking of Kaz, (I will get flamed for this I know) I didn’t like him. From what I saw on Booksta, I thought there was going to be some great love story between him and Inej. That awkward moment when I felt like Inej had more chemistry with Jesper or Matthias than Kaz. He was also all bark and very little bite. With all of his threats he made to people, he only carried out a seldom few. On top of that, I found it hard to believe that he was the most ruthless in Ketterdam as a teenager.

Inej was a queen. Nina was great, but her whole fabrication of the lie surrounding why she got Matthias sent to prison annoyed me. I also literally do not remember a description of her including being overweight. Somewhere I remember it being said she was curvy, but I see fan art all over the place where she is overweight. Jesper, I liked him. Sharpshooter, farm boy, secret Grisha. I liked him. He actually seemed relatable to a teenager because he was impulsive when it came to gambling and still had the foolhardy sense to go into shootouts without much fear which relates back to that teenage ideology that “it won’t happen to me.”

Don’t crucify me, I loved baby Wylan……but I forgot he was there a lot. Matthias. I loved him. While I liked Nina and liked the idea of Helnik…..I liked the idea of Inej and Matthias more. The fact that I can see Matthias with someone other than who LB planned is a problem. If she was writing with their end ship in mind, then I shouldn’t be able to say that Matthias and Inej would actually make a better couple than Nina and Matthias.

I say this because they seem like they would have more in common, better chemistry, and a better understanding of each other. the Helnik ship seems to stem from some sense of duty that they have for each other rather than actual chemistry.

….I will get major flames for this, but I almost feel like the book will be better as the Netflix show than the book. The narration style just didn’t do it for me. Also, if they follow the plot and kill my boy Matthias, I will have words.