So for this review, Obscurists, we’re returning to Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse in her dark epic fantasy “
Crooked Kingdom.” Characters from which will be featured in a new Netflix show “Shadow and Bone” coming out this April.
***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***
What I love about this book:
Sometimes sequels don’t quite match up to the first story, like “Ghostbusters 2,” for example. In trying to recapture the original’s magic, they end up telling the first story again, but slightly different. That is emphatically not the case with “Crooked Kingdom,” which, in my opinion, addresses all of my minor issues with “Six of Crows” and tells a whole new story. Again—in my opinion—it is a far superior book to its predecessor.
I felt that the city of Ketterdam is a far better setting than the Ice Court and was thrilled that this is where all the action of this story takes place. Ketterdam has all the intrigue and political machinations on both sides of the law. It’s a dynamic place, a melting pot of a variety of peoples created by Bardugo. Whereas the Ice Court, in Fjerda, certainly had a lot of ice—that—and blonde-haired blue-eyed barbarians. As a blonde-haired, green-eyed barbarian, meself, I know these people already, I’d rather hang out in Ketterdam.
“Crooked Kingdom” turned me around on Wylan and Jesper’s relationship. In the first book, I felt it was tacked on, but in this, I thought it might have been the healthiest romantic subplot of the bunch. This further development of the characters was really done well, and Bardugo doesn’t try to re-review old territory with her characters. Since she didn’t have to introduce her characters, she had far more time to develop them further and deepen their individual arcs.
What I don’t love about this book:
One character in this book I didn’t like and didn’t feel contributed much in the narrative, despite becoming the central McGuffin at the end of “Six of Crows,” and throughout this novel, was Kuwei Yul-Bo. Kuwei is vital to the plot because of what he might be able to do—not because of who he is as a person, which is mainly an ungrateful catty prick. I get it—he wants his freedom to go where he chooses and resents Kaz for using him as a chip in the big game of nation-states—see how I didn’t say thrones there? Oh, shit, I just did—damn it.
But anyway, back on topic; why I don’t like Kuwei is because he annoyingly goes on about how he’s being treated by the dregs. He complains incessantly, without really acknowledging that without the dregs and Kaz, he’d be back at the Ice Court, in a cell, forced to create what amounts to a weapon of mass destruction for a bunch of people just one shade away from Nazi.
This is a minor quibble, and it’s more my fault than anything, but we get introduced to characters from a previous story in this novel, from a different trilogy, and I get the sense that there is a lot of depth to them that I’m missing because I haven’t read those stories yet. This is the crux of why I don’t like reading things out of order. I want to understand each character’s story in precisely the manner and order it was intended. But again, this is what I get for having read the “Six of Crows” duology first before the “Shadow & Bone” trilogy, and I really only have myself to blame.
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***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***
The quick and dirty synopsis:
“Crooked Kingdom” starts off right where the last book left off, Kaz and crew have just pulled off an impossible heist, and their employer betrayed them, kidnapping Inej, who is Kaz’s love interest from the first book. The merchant gives Kaz and the dregs an ultimatum, give him Kuwei, which really means the secret of Jurda Parem, the most dangerous substance in the world, for Inej.
