This review will be a mixed bag of emotions. Spoilers ahead, but not before some overview.

Crooked Kingdom takes place essentially immediately after the events in Six of Crows. We follow the crew we met last time as they attempt to earn back what was rightfully theirs from Van Eck and deal with the inevitable challenges that make it harder for them to do so. 

It’s worth the read, but I can’t promise it will be as good as the first. It definitely wasn’t for me.

What makes this book both intriguing and simultaneously infuriating is that there is no clear plan as there was in the last book. Simply put, we have a rather vague end goal—get the thirty million Van Eck owed them—and no plan to get there. On one hand, this makes for a fun read; we never know what to expect from our gang of far too young thieves. It keeps us on our toes and inclined to continue reading because how, oh how, will our beloved criminals make it out of their binds this time? Will they get their money? Will they live? All of these questions are ones that should keep me up at night figuratively. However, I slept like it was my job. Employee of the month. 

The trouble with this unset plan (for the entire book) is that there are no longer stakes. Sure we need to

rescue Inej.

. And yes, we need to

find a way out of the city after it has been locked down

. But, with our ever-changing plans, it is hard for me to maintain this sense of tension. This is funny because I’m sure the opposite effect was intended. 

Allow me to explain how I see it.

When one plan goes wrong in Crooked Kingdom, one of two things happens. 1: It ends up working in the crew’s favor. 2: It was the crew’s/Kaz’s plan all along, therefore was intended. It’s not difficult to catch onto this, which in turn, takes the suspense out of reading the events in this book. In Six of Crows, we were in an unfamiliar environment with a crew we couldn’t fully trust, using plans that weren’t guaranteed to work. Makes for an action-packed, tension-filled story. In Crooked Kingdom, we face numerous enemies (all of whom outnumber our crew of six), new advanced Grisha (more on this later), and Pekka Rollins I guess (I was trying to think of a third thing to add to this list, which should say something about the antagonists and how that was all written). In addition to this, the whole city is against our cast. So, why didn’t I feel scared for them at all? Why was I certain that they would get their way at the end of this book? Maybe because they are back on their own turf. Sure, the city is against them, but we know for a fact that they know the city and its inhabitants in and out. They’ll use it to their advantage, surely. On top of this, our silly little crew trusts each other now. There is still tension between characters throughout the book, but the majority of the character relations in this novel revolve around flirting and navigating romantic relationships, which makes for a fun read, yes, but dissolves any sort of tension that made the first book so engaging. Granted, the romantic aspects in this novel create an entirely different tension, which I will discuss later. The point is, despite the seemingly stacked odds against our cast, the tension doesn’t even draw near what it should, which was a bit disappointing.

Now that my biggest gripe is out of the way, let’s clear some things up with a healthy amount of positivity, shall we?

Bardugo manages to write characters in such a dynamic way, I can’t help but enjoy my reading. And what is reading for, if not for enjoyment?  Her characters feel alive and I can envision each of them in my head thanks to her talent for writing unique character voices. 

Along with this, I am pleased with her writing of relationships, especially between

Kaz and Inej. I knew that if their relationship was rushed and ended on a certain note, I would have been extremely annoyed. Thankfully, Bardugo knows her characters and she knows them well. Their relationship progressed at its natural pace, and we ended on a high note, yes, but one that aligned with where her characters were mentally, allowing the tension between them and what’s to come to speak for itself.

I commend that.

In general, this was a fun read and, though I do like the first novel better, I will say this is a decent sequel.

Back to my gripes.

The pacing felt a little funny. In this novel, we get loads and loads of backstory. At one point, it felt like every other chapter I was getting pages of backstory from a new character. Though these were intriguing and well-written, I can’t help but feel it slows the pace, which is intriguing given that several plot points in this book rely heavily on a time constraint. 

Next:

The armed, winged soldiers. She really said, “BEHOLD! LOOK UPON THESE POWERFUL CREATURES OF UNNATURAL CREATION. SEE HOW THEY FIGHT RELENTLESSLY. FEEL AS YOU TAKE YOUR FINAL BREATHS - oh… oh, you fought them off? Oh, umm… okay, I guess I just won’t mention them again.” I exaggerate. Bardugo mentioned them once (maybe twice) hundreds of pages after those soldiers were introduced. They feel unnecessary. And given that they don’t appear again, I think Bardugo felt the same.

Several things felt underwhelming so, I guess I will categorize the next small complaints in a big title that says “underwhelming”.

UNDERWHELMING:

And last but not least, I still think the characters are too young to be planning and executing all this stuff, but there’s no changing that, and I guess I just have to accept that. 

It is a very different book from the first one, and to be honest, if not for the lovable characters and the want to see them succeed, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed this book to the point that I did. I feel that my rating reflects those feelings. 

In other news, we need to band together and stop whoever is putting those irremovable “stickers” on the covers of books. Throws off the whole cover.