Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo
It took me a while to get into this — around 50% of the book, actually — because it all felt like Kaz was being driven by Van Eck, instead of the crew banding together and calling the shots, which I badly wanted after the ending of Six of Crows. Kaz felt too cold and distant for a lot of it, and his POV took a long time to come round. Still, once it did, I did enjoy the way Kaz’s need for vengeance was handled, and his difficulties in touching people and expressing his feelings, etc. There’s a great bit which just describes perfectly how those OCD behaviours get established if you don’t fight them every step of the way.
And once you hit that 50% mark, the crew really start to take back what’s theirs and fight back, and it’s a lot of fun. Wylan and Jesper’s relationship is adorable, and I rather enjoy Jesper’s father’s part as well. The comeuppance is great, and the end of the book did not go quite exactly as I’d pictured. Gah, some of the last imagery of Nina and Matthias… But ahh, Inej’s ending is everything I needed, and Wylan’s position at the end is awesome.
If you enjoyed Six of Crows, you’ll probably enjoy this, and if you find it slow at first you probably just need to hold out for about 50% of the way through.
My problem was I couldn’t get into the first book and I was fed up waiting for the heist to even get planned! I do love the book covers though!
I know what you mean, and this book was worse for that!
I liked this one as well, but you are absolutely correct about it being better in the second half. In any case, I’m glad I read it, because I actually ended up enjoying it more than Six of Crows!
I don’t know which I prefer… they work best together, it’s hard to pick really. If you didn’t have the first one for build-up, it’d be harder to care.