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Darling readers, it is a Virtual Book Club miracle!  Both Ashley and Nikki have already finished reading  From Blood and Ash #1 by Jennifer Armentrout for our meeting on August 26 at 7:30pm CST and are BEYOND ready to discuss this title, and pick up the second in the series.  We’re holding off on both because of you!  So, don’t disappoint us and yourselves by missing out on the conversation, instead, sign up here and set a calendar reminder to buzz you with time to get your device and favorite beverage before the discussion begins!

There once were two readers who generally liked many different kinds of books, but really didn’t want to talk about a book they didn’t care for.  It’s us, we are those readers.  We picked a book for today, actually two.  The first wasn’t for us (slide into our DMs if you want to know more), so we’re not reviewing it, or reading the second.  My granny always told me if I didn’t have anything nice to say, then not to say anything at all.  Well, there were no plot holes or typos, and I’m done.  So, instead of a really short and lame review of a book that shall not be named (except here), we are going to review two different titles – Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo!

First a bit of a heads up, the Six of Crows duology is a part of the Grishaverse and comes after the Shadow and Bone Trilogy.  While these books take place in different parts of the Grishaverse, Six of Crows does include some slight potential spoilers to the ending of the trilogy.  Purists definitely want to read in publication order, but others may not care.  As always, the DMs are open if you need more information.

Now for a review!  Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom were definitely on my TBR list about the moment I finished the Shadow and Bone Trilogy earlier this year.  When I needed a dead tree book to take to the beach, and had been (not so) patiently waiting in vain for Crooked Kingdom to become available from my electronic library, I decided that it’d make a great beach read.  It helped that I’d read the first two books of the trilogy on the beach last summer.  Readers, I was right, but my timing was off.  I ended up only getting two days on the beach with it, because I didn’t finish Six of Crows until a couple of days into my trip, so it took me about six weeks to read, and my only regret is that I didn’t read Crooked Kingdom faster.

Six of Crows opens in Ketterdam, a city on the island of Kerch that is focused on business and trade.  In it, we have an ensemble cast (which might actually be my favorite) of misfits who are seeking different things, but all boil down to they are trying to find themselves in some way.  They’re from a wide variety of backgrounds, and mostly ended up in Ketterdam by accident, but they’re making the most of it and trying to thrive, now that they’ve (mostly) figured out the surviving part.  Did I forget to mention that most are a part of a street gang?  Oops.  The story is about their adventures to make some money, which quickly turns into trying to save the world, basically, and multiple hijinks ensue.   

The writing is the star of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, and I just might #weaponsorfists anyone who disagrees, even though I adore the ensemble.  Bardugo paints a glorious picture of Ketterdam and the surroundings, she captures the intensity of the hijinks majestically, and the voices of the different narrators in the ensemble are truly fantastic.  Yes friends, these titles have multiple narrators from the ensemble and I LOVED IT.  I didn’t realize I was in for a fun romp of an adventure making that dollar and getting things done, but that’s what happened and I am HERE. FOR. IT. to the point that the adults in my house even started watching Shadow and Bone on Netflix before I finished the last 150 or so pages of Crooked Kingdom.  If you’re considering the show, here’s what I didn’t know but wanted to, from about six episodes into the first season – it’s book one of Shadow and Bone with a sort of prequel to Six of Crows mixed in.  As someone who prefers to develop my own imagination around the settings and characters, I am so glad I read Six of Crows before I started reading, even though one of my favorite librarians told me it wasn’t necessary.  But I am a bit of a purist, so it took me a couple of episodes to be excited about the pieces of the show that include Kaz and company (aka the Six of Crows pieces).  

I’m giving Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom four excited, emphatic stars each.  The only reason it’s not five is that I do tend to reserve that fifth star for titles I can see being potential favorites of the year or I think I’ll reread.  While I could be easily convinced to reread any of the Grishaverse main titles so far, I don’t think I’ll do it on my own.  Four stars is a solid read, a fun hang, and a well-executed title that I’d definitely recommend.  Also, if you tend to have feelings about Young Adult titles and are concerned about this one *cough Ashley cough* I’d encourage you to go ahead and pick this title up.  The story is focused on young people, but they’ve already lived a lot of life and don’t have all the angst I’ve come to expect from a traditional YA title.  If fantasy isn’t for you, well…that’s another story entirely.  

What’s a book that was just a great reading experience all around?

~Nikki 

During July 2021’s Summer Reading theme, we brought you Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. Well, here we are a little over a year later, and both members of Heart.Wants.Books. have finished the Shadow and Bone Trilogy (multiple times bestseller, there’s a Netflix show by the same name, fancy important bookish information, blah blah blah) and have continued in our immersion in the Grishaverse with the Six of Crows Duology, which picks up just a few years after the action in Ruin and Rising. We have yet to start Bardugo’s King of Scars Duology, the first of which is currently available on Kindle Unlimited, so get yourself reading to catch up with us! I have already read Ninth House, Bardugo’s adult magical realism title set at Yale, and am excited for the publication of the second in the Alex Stern series, Hell Bent, which is scheduled to release in January 2023. (Oh, ye digital library readers, go ahead and get that baby recommended to your library so you’re properly on the holds list now!) Just as a refresher, Leigh Bardugo lives and writes in Los Angeles, but is a graduate of, and a current associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.

Nikki and I both love an ensemble cast. And, honestly, I think that’s the best way to read YA. An ensemble cast, with the friendships and romances and sass and snark you would expect from a group of young persons is the unexpected counterpoint to the formulaic romances we also love to read. I remember high school and college and that’s about what it was, yup. Maybe not the saving the world part, but the intimate circle of people who you know so well and grow in different ways together and separately. It’s amazing to witness in real life and it’s amazing to see in fiction, too. What I also love about what Bardugo did with her ensemble cast, just like we discussed with Roshani Chokshi’s The Gilded Wolves Trilogy,is creating a cast of differing backgrounds and identities. Bardugo’s group of six are four males and two females, comprising homelands from all over the Grishaverse so that they look and speak differently from each other. Two of the males are paired together romantically, with an outsider coming between them in the most odd way imaginable in Crooked Kingdom. I won’t tell you or I’d be spoiling so much! But, this is YA, so there’s not more written about than kissing. Like many YA novels, there’s so much action to take in that you don’t realize the character development that is happening at the same time.

I’m going to give the duology a solid 4.5 stars, but I’m not going to round up to five because I don’t think I will re-read them, even though I will consider a re-read if a friend wanted to experience them for the first time. Don’t forget that the end of Six of Crows will be be ridiculously dramatic and very clif-hanger-esque, because it is a duology, so prepare yourself for a back to back binge just like we did! By the end of Crooked Kingdom, everything from their adventures is settled, even if we know these young adults will continue adventuring in some other manner in their future, if not in future books. This really was the perfect summer reading adventure I needed.

~Ashley

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