Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

' "Just trust me, Nina."

"I wouldn't trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz." '

This gritty fantasy opens with the introduction of six quirky characters. Kaz Brekker, only seventeen years old, is a hardened career criminal in a street gang known as the Dreggs. Jesper is an ex-farmboy turned sharpshooter with a gambling addiction. Inej, aka The Wraith, is indentured to the Dreggs but finds she has a talent for criminality; she's dangerous, fearless. She's the thief of secrets. Wylan was born to privilege and ran from it; he went from being a wealthy merchant's son, to being a demolitions expert for Kaz's gang. Matthias, Kaz's opposite; run by what he considers to be a moral high ground, is a soldier trained to hunt down witches and was convicted on false charges. And then there's Nina, a witch, or Grisha, who put Matthias in prison and is desperate to correct that wrong.

These six teenagers hardened by their own backstories, outcasts from society and family, are about to receive an offer they can't refuse. Break a chemist out of a maximum-security prison located in an impenetrable compound in exchange for more money than they'll ever see again in their whole lives. If they succeed, they'll all be able to put that money toward correcting the course of their lives and if they fail, they'll probably be executed for trying.

So I added this book to my TBR list ages ago, and I didn't realize at the time that this duology belonged to a collection of books known as the Grishaverse until I had it in my hand at the bookstore, and of course at that point I wasn't putting it down. The first quarter of the book was a little hard for me to get into and I wonder after the fact whether or not it would have been an easier read if I read the Shadow and Bone trilogy first, which was apparently Leigh Bardugo's first foray into the Grishaverse. But as I got to know the characters and the setting the story smoothed out. 

I liked that this fantasy doesn't have a 'chosen one' driven plot with a protagonist pure as the driven snow. Instead, LB gives us a cast of anti-heroes, who set out to do something wrong for personal gain. The characters are quirky and despite the fact that they're all engaged in criminal activity, I found them to be deeply likable. They're fully flushed out; their backstories being dribbled out slowly over the course of the book along with their motives and their hopes for the future. The characters were designed to be rich and three dimensional.

I loved that I could clearly see the setting: the alleyways and streets where the criminal underbelly thrived and the flourishing port where merchants, tourists, and immigrants come ashore in Ketterdam only to find themselves being prey upon in the seedy part of town. The setting changed over time, of course it did, it's a quest after all, and our characters eventually board a ship bound for the frozen North. I think part of what I liked about the setting was how closely it mirrored our own world. Cities that bustle with life and a Northern country caked in snow and ice... It's an easy world to imagine because it's not dissimilar from the real one.

The plot is part addicting and part frustrating. Kaz, the ringleader, is the man with the plan. And while every character knows the part they have to play, he won't tell any of them the details of the scheme. If you want to know what he's up to, you just have to keep on reading.

There were only a couple of things I didn't like. The first was that Kaz's backstory was told so slowly. I felt like because he was the main character out of the six and because he was given so many unusual qualities so early in the story: he's got a limp, gloves he'll never take off, and a whole lot of anger... His backstory may actually have made the beginning of the story move a little faster. His past isn't revealed until almost the end. The other thing was that Wylan's backstory explains why he's with the gang and what his motives are for agreeing, but not necessarily what he hoped to gain from it (besides a lot of money) which made him seem slightly shallow.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and am looking forward to picking up its sequel.