Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: A review

***Guys, I apologise profusely for the lateness of this post. It was supposed to go up last week, but I have been so busy this week that I literally have not had a spare minute to breath, let alone put up this post, which would have taken all of two minutes.***

Week 11 of 13

I did a review on Six of Crows, which is the prequel to this, some time back, you can go looking for it if you really want to, I won't blame you if you don't. And on the infinitesimal chance that you did... you will know how much I loved the first book, and how EXCITED I was for Book 2.

And sweet Lord...

Rating: 4.47 out of 5 stars

I was actually going to give this a full 5 stars, but I didn't for reasons I'll go into in a bit.

Now, before starting this review, there is an issue with Kaz that you need to sort out in your mind. It's not whether you love Kaz or not, because that's not even an issue. Everyone has to love Kaz. No, what you need to decide, is whether you can believe that a seventeen year old (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong) guy can pull off all the crazy shit that goes down in this book.

Because in Six of Crows, I'm sure for a lot people, there was a very prolonged suspension of disbelief that Kaz actually went out and did what he said with such self confidence that he could. And that's all well and good, but in Crooked Kingdom, Kaz isn't just going against one country. He's going against several. And (this isn't really a spoiler, because every knew deep down that he could pull it off) he slayed them all and walked away, with nary a hair out of place.

And even I, a self-proclaimed Kaz-Brekker's-Number-1-Fangirl, had to read Crooked Kingdom with several tablespoons of salt. But overall, I would say it's still more believable than all the next-level stuff Aelin pulls off in Empire of Storms, despite having next to no tactical experience.

So, on with the review

The biggest thing that I must mention is this book is never boring. The first one wasn't either, but the stakes have been upped so dramatically in this one, there's so much stuff that has to be pulled off and wrapped up in this book that there is never a boring moment. I feel weird saying this, because I've read this comparison used in other reviews for other books and thought



but by God I swear, there is not better phrase to describe this story other than a roller coaster. We're not talking the Buffalo Coaster here guys, this is the bloody Smiler. Like, in a "OhmygodI'mgonnacrashandburnwiththisshiparen'tI?" way. I've not read many other books where the plot and the pace is so tight and so compelling that I cannot put it down. And for that, I commend her. Because it's a rare author who can do that.



(On a moderately-sized side note, I have to mention how amazingly different these two books are from the Grisha trilogy. I was actually one of the rare few people who actually really liked the Grisha trilogy- I mean, I did have problems with it, especially that ending- but if you compare the quality of the work between the series, you would think a completely different person wrote it! Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom are just so much more grittier and better written and better developed and superior in every way.)

Crooked Kingdom picks up a few days after Six of Crows, and Kaz, Nina, Matthias, Jesper and Wylan (and Kuwei, I suppose) are still reeling from the betrayal at the end of the previous book, and coming to terms with losing one of their crew. Jesper is trying to atone for his betrayal, Wylan is trying to come to terms with his father's attitude towards him, Kaz is trying to strike the perfect balance between being concerned for Inej and er, not being concerned for Inej, Nina is still reeling from the after-effects of the jurda parem, and poor Matthias is doing the best he can to help his love, however weak his efforts are. One of the things that really surprised me in the first book, and did here as well, is how perfectly Bardugo balances every character's POV. I've read books with only two or three different POVs, that were developed weakly and didn't make me care for the characters one jot, but  man, Bardugo still keeps up the same calibre of character development as in her prevous installment, and it's truly quite phenomenal. I mean, I can't believe I'm actually sympathising with Jesper. If someone came up to me and told me about a real guy with Jesper's story, I'd be all:



but here, Bardugo crafts Jesper's inner turmoil so well, and despite all of his many failings, makes us sympathise with him so much, reading about the way he tries to beat his addiction, I just ended up like:



And can I fangirl about my ships now, please?

I actually got up and danced exactly like this:



when Kaz took Inej's hand, right at the end. That scene in the bathroom, where Kaz tries to tie Inej's bandage without his gloves, because even though he cannot physically bear the touch of skin on skin because of what happened with this brother (for those of you who haven't read Six of Crows and don't know what it means, it's not what it sounds like, honest) but for Inej, for the future with her that he's not allowing himself to believe in, he's willing to give it a go, but then right at the end, he pulls away, just left me like:



But then there was the adorable bit at the end, where Kaz took Inej's hand, ever so tentatively, and even though it wasn't spelled out for us, and the ending was left a bit open which I usually DETEST VEHEMENTLY, the cuteness and the feels of the moment were just too much for me to handle.



I am actually uncertain whether I love Inej or Kaz more. Well no, I'm not, because Kaz Brekker is tying with Will Herondale for my one true literary love (I shit you not, my friends would tell you how serious a claim that is, but it's how much I love Kaz) but I'm just trying to convey what a fantastic character Inej is. She's not a wonderful person, of course she's not, in Ketterdam, how can you be? But she's just so strong, and I was having a conversation with two of my friends the other day, and we were saying, Sure, there are lots of strong female characters we read about nowadays, that's not the problem, but it's a bit harder to find likeable strong female characters, because half of them are meant to be seen as really hard and badass, but they just come across as knobs *cough cough Aelin cough cough*. You know how it is, you spend your whole life waiting for cool fictional gals you would hypothetically hang out with, and then two come along at once. (We'll go onto Nina later).

And Kaz....



I could actually do my whole post about what an amazingly complex character he is, but I won't, I'll try to keep gushing to a minimum. But he's just so dark, and so richly written, and so tortured and haunted, but at the same time, so naive and helpless, especially when it comes to Inej.

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.” 

Who doesn't want a guy to say that to them.

And Jesper and Wylan!



Argh, they are adawbs! I knew they were going to get together, but it didn't  make it any less satisfying when they finally kissed.

But before we move onto Nina and Matthias, let's say something



When Matthias died (YES, YOU HEARD ME CORRECTLY), I wanted to halt the proceeding and just say



NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

I had quite a few problems with it. I had quite a few problems with the ending in general actually, which is why the rating is not as high as you would expect it to be. Firstly, the decision to have Matthias' death was not a good call. Apart from the fact that it's just so peak to poor Nina (yes, I just used the word peak. I'm as disgusted as you are) it just felt quite unnecessary, as if it had only been written in for the sake of having a main character die. And even then, I felt it was really badly written, like it just happened, Nina was sad, everyone was sad, and then they all got over it. Right up until the last page, I was waiting for Nina to somehow magically resurrect him Rapunzel-style, just before she was about to bury him. And the ending itself, was just too, too open-ended for me. I didn't really feel like everything had really come full circle, like yeah, the bad dudes have been vanquished, Jesper and Wylan are living a nice domestic life together, Nina is off to bury Matthias, Inej is off chasing down slavers, and Kaz may tag along with her. It just felt too, I don't know, inconsistent with the rest of the story's style. Up till the end, it had been so deliciously fast and complicated, and then it was all resolved a bit too simply, like Bardugo couldn't be bothered to give them the explosive ending they deserved.

On a more positive note, NIKOLAI WAS IN THIS!



Well, technically it was Sturmhond, his privateer alter-ego, and he's part of a delegation from Ravka, "representing King Nikolai", wink wink nudge nudge. And obviously, nothing in the entire universe gets past Kaz Brekker, so Sturmhond and Kaz's meeting and clashing of the wits and banter, is as amusing as you would expect it to be.

And before I finish off this review, there's yet another thing I must commend Ms. Bardugo for. I'm a smart girl. I say this with not an ounce of arrogance, but I am. I am predicted very high for all of the subjects I am taking, and I'm aiming to get into the best universities. And I could never, ever, come up with the next-level, ingeniously designed plots that Bardugo makes Kaz think up. It's so easy to underestimate how difficult it is to write plot twists, and think your way out of tight, tricky situations, and for the life of me, I would never be able to write the way Kaz's ming is shown in these two books. The cogs of his brain are always turning, he's always plotting, always scheming, always thinking twenty steps ahead. And he's just so confident and so self-assured, that whenever we know that there is a plot about to unfold, we just want to race ahead and find out how Kaz executes it, and fights his way out of the sticky spots, as we know he will. It's actually truly astounding, how he knows exactly what his enemies will want to do for the next step, and they think they know what he will do, so they take their steps accordingly, but Kaz knows what they think they know, (if that makes sense) and he will never fall into their trap, and man, it's truly amazing. If Kaz and Skulduggery were ever pitted against each other in a battle of tactics and wits, I would actually (however guilty I felt while doing it), put my money on Kaz.

Guys, you need to read these two books. They will blow. Your. Mind.