Title: Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Warnings: blood, gore, torture, death, murder, rape
Rating: 5 stars
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"Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget."I wish I could remember every word of this book the way that crows remember faces. If I could I would never let those words go.
Crooked Kingdom broke me in a way that almost no other book has been capable of doing. The connection I felt to these characters was so real that the idea of no longer reading about them is painful. And I didn't expect that from this series, not from the first book at least. Six of Crows was just their backstory, and Crooked Kingdom was their legacy.
"That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway."
The relationships between the characters were beautiful. I found myself rooting for all three romantic pairings, but also craving more scenes where their group dynamic could be seen at it's best. And Leigh Bardugo most definitely delivered.
I read this book everywhere. On the train, in the library - you name it. I caused myself much embarrassment from laughing out loud in public places, but I couldn't care less. Crooked Kingdom wholly transported me into the world of Ketterdam, and it wasn't just the humour and the characters that did it. There were lines where I had to stop and reread them because they were just so magnificent.
"You aren’t a flower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming."
The plot was so strong with this book - far more so than Six of Crows. It had a level of complexity that I haven't seen in any YA before, and had me guessing at every turn only to be shocked by the outcome every time.
Magnificent, brilliant, and ingeniously crafted, Crooked Kingdom made me laugh, gasp and cry, sometimes all in one scene. It dealt with very real ideas about human trafficking and the meaning of morality, as well as showing how different people deal with love, family and grief. It's a worthy sequel to it's predecessor, and has confirmed the Six of Crows duology as one of my all-time-favourite series'. It hurt me a lot, but I would go through that pain a thousand times again just to relive the magic of the Grisha universe and of Bardugo's writing.
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