Review: Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2)

Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2)
By Leigh Bardugo

Published By: Orion Publishing
Publication Date: September 27, 2016
Date Read: July 14, 2021
Genre: YA – Fantasy
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 561

From Goodreads:
Welcome to the world of the Grisha.

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city’s dark and twisting streets – a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.

“We meet fear, we greet the unexpected visitor and listen to what he has to tell us. When fear arrives, something is about to happen.”

Crooked Kingdom has been sat on my bookshelf unread for years. I only got around to reading Six of Crows this year and so I am happy to have finally read this super popular series. I know a lot of people absolutely love this series, and it’s usually everyone’s favourite of the Grishaverse books. I wish I could say the same, but I’m kind of left just feeling like I’m missing something. I feel like this duology is very much overhyped and I just wish I got the hype… but I don’t. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this book… I did. But rather that falling head over heels with it, I felt like it was just… okay.

My emotions on this series are so very mixed. It’s actually a really strange experience for me. I’m usually an all or nothing kind of person. You’ll find, I usually rate most books quite highly. That’s because I either really like something… or I hate it and don’t finish the book. This book was very much in the middle for me, which doesn’t actually happen very often. I love the characters. Like LOVE!!! them. I was obsessed with their stories and just couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen to them, and whether they would get their happy ending.

My issue with this book is the plot and the pacing. It’s just so all over the place to me. This is clearly a very character-driven book and unfortunately I am not a character-driven reader. I need fast paced and exciting plot or I get bored. And when I get bored, I want to stop reading and not continue. And this is how I felt with Crooked Kingdom. I was bored for a good 80% of this book as literally nothing was happening. And when something did start happening, the characters started thinking about something that happened to them years and years ago. I was like dude… for real? Just get on with the plot already… I don’t care! I struggled with this one so so much and it definitely took away from my enjoyment.

Unfortunately, Crooked Kingdom clearly just wasn’t for me. I was bored stupid and ended up skim reading pretty much the entire thing. If it wasn’t for my already existing love of the Grishaverse and my love of the characters and caring what happened to them, I’d definitely have DNF’d this book. I know this probably sounds like I hated this book… I didn’t! Not at all! I think I just had such high expectations of this book and it just didn’t reach them. There were too many viewpoints for me to really get into any one of them. I also missed the fantasy book elements that we got with the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I wish I loved this one but I didn’t. I definitely won’t be re-reading this duology but I am excited to go on to read the King of Scars duology.

“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.”

“No Mourners… No Funerals.”

Follow K-Books on WordPress.com