REVIEW: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Crooked Kingdom
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance
Pages: 536
Publisher: Orion Children's Books
Synopsis:Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled 
off the most daring heist imaginable.
But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're 
fighting for their lives. 
Double-crossed and badly weakened, they're low on 
resources, allies and hope.
While a war rages on the city's streets, the team's 
fragile loyalties are stretched to breaking point. 
Kaz and his crew will have to make sure they're on the winning side... no 
matter what the cost.
(Source)

Review: Crooked Kingdom was one of my most anticipated releases for the second half of 2016. I read Six of Crows earlier this year and I LOVED IT so I was pretty excited for the sequel and conclusion. I have to admit; I was a little nervous. I wasn’t sure if CK was going to live up to SoC because it had some seriously big shoes to fill. But omg I LOVED IT TOO.

CK picks up basically right where SoC left off and it’s straight into the action. Six of Crows mostly followed the characters as they tried to pull off a heist and their journey to Fjerda whereas Crooked Kingdom is entirely set in Ketterdam. I really loved this because it meant we got to see so much of the city. I love the politics and the government aspect of this book. It plays such a huge part in the plot and it keeps things to interesting.

I loved being back with Kaz and the gang. I loved seeing what plans he was coming up with and just the dynamic between him and the other characters. I love the camaraderie between them all but as this was a finale, seeing how these characters planned to go their separate ways was bittersweet.

Leigh Bardugo is really such a masterful story teller. The world she has created in her Grisha books is so vivid and wonderful. I absolutely adore the characters and the writing.

One of my absolute favourite things about this book was the romance. I feel like Six of Crows didn’t have as much of a romantic aspect. I think any romantic feelings between most of the characters were more just hinted at. I really loved seeing these changes and emotions explored in Crooked Kingdom.

“If you couldn’t beat the odds, you changed the game.”
pg. 295

This book is literally full of SO MANY SHIPS. I love every single character and I just love how they all found their match and the person who made them not just happy but better.

I was kind of worried for a lot of the first half of this book about where the plot would go. I just didn’t know what was going to happen next but I think that’s a good thing because no one likes when a book is predictable. This book kept me on the edge of my seat because it was full of so many twists and turns and it managed to keep me interested throughout all 500+ pages.

I loved seeing cameos from some characters from the Grisha trilogy: Zoya and Nikolai. I loved Nikolai in those books and I loved seeing him again. I also loved seeing some more of each character’s background. We saw a lot of backstory in Six of Crows and it was so great to get even more in this book.

I adore just about every single character in this duology. I think Kaz went through SO MUCH development in this book. I don’t even mean the obvious changes we see occur in the last chapters, but just the little things he does throughout the novel hints at how he is growing and changing into someone not necessarily better but different.

The cast of characters in this book is so diverse and I just don’t know how anyone could not love them. They’re so different but they make such a badass team and I want to be friends with all of them. I loved seeing the changes they ALL went through, it made me so happy. It makes me so sad that these characters stories have finished. But I can only hope that if Leigh Bardugo writes anything more set in the Grisha world that at least one of the Crows will make a cameo.

This book will break your heart and it will put it back together again. Crooked Kingdom had me in tears and it had me grinning like an idiot. It really is such a wonderful book filled with wonderful characters and wonderful writing. If you have yet to pick up Six of Crows, then you need to ASAP!

★★★★★