I knew I needed to read Crooked Kingdom after that ending with Six of Crows. However, I felt the burden of its requirement rather than excitement in finding out what would happen next. It’s because I knew there will be a painful part in the second book. And because of what I experienced while reading SOC, I knew it’s not really the kind of book that I can read smoothly.
The Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom offers good set of characters, an invented world that we can still all relate to, few witches, and a mission that we would want to know if it’s possible to achieve or not. However, my suspension of disbelief is not fully active while reading the two books. I struggle not because the writing sucks. Leigh Bardugo can write scenes well and divide the parts of the story properly. And even though there are some details that I no longer care to understand, the two books somehow keeps my interest alive. It’s a hard story to write but she risks it. I would have love it if I didn’t notice that big void that I cannot easily ignore and which I was trying to fill.
Anyway, story first. Like I said in my Six of Crows (Book Review), it ended as a “to be continued” story. Crooked Kingdom started off with Inej being held captive by the villain and the new mission of the gang is to save her, get back the money they were supposed to have and prevent a war. It sounds hard, right? Yes. It is hard. It’s not something teenagers can deal with. But that is the amazing part of fiction books. It can make us believe that a child is a genius. That dragons can be killed by mere mortals. Anyway, I digress.
I enjoyed not knowing what could be the possible solutions to their problems. But did I care enough to think with the characters? No. Not really. I just let Kaz lead his newly found gang and gasp at every tension thrown at our way. Sometimes good things happen. Sometimes they were drive into a corner. But since they are so smart and talented, I knew there will be a happy ending somewhere along the way. But not really. I knew it because I’ve been warned with random comments I read without giving in to any spoilers. So I imagined the worst so I can prevent any amount of tears to fall. Only to end up crying towards the end. And be disappointed with myself. But… it was the scenes at the ending that made me realize that this duology is still trying to be realistic despite its fancy elements.
Now, let’s go back to that void I mentioned (which is my main reason for giving these books an almost four stars). The two books offers intelligent characters with solid backstory that would justify why they act the way they act in the present time. However, I couldn’t fully believe that a minor can speak and think and act the way they do. Sure, they experience the harsh realities that no child should be experiencing but it doesn’t transform them into adults. It will mold them to either become a selfish bastard, a bitter girl, a murderous witch, a cold-blooded soldier, or even a smart thief (which can be seen in the story by the way). But the adolescence stage will somehow still linger even though they were jaded because of what life had first offered them. There was a point that I told myself, I won’t be surprise if Matthias and Nina will have a very short love scene (or an indication that they had sex as the chapter ends). Because their chemistry is with the same intensity from what I read from the Sexy Romance novels. I’m even convinced that this is not a YA novel. That maybe, someone labelled it wrong. Which leads me to an idea that Leigh Bardugo should write a fantasy novel intended for adults. It could be her forte. Just saying.
This isn’t the first time I read a book with a character with a tragic childhood so I cannot help but compare this reading experience with the ones I had. I also considered the fact that maybe the writer is trying to show us what it was like when a child was stripped off its innocence at an early point in his or her life. And maybe, this is an attempt to see how a teenager matures early. Yet, even if I manage to come up with these reasons I still cannot convince myself it was the case. So, I tried imagining them as adults instead. And that, somehow, helped me to push through reading it. Until some lines were written that would clearly remind me that they were just sixteen or seventeen years old. And that would ruin my momentum and imagination, which is not a pleasant experience.
It would be believable if all of them are possessed by an adult ghosts or spirits (by that I mean dead people in their 30s). But I guess, this opinion is just coming from someone who is used to seeing teenagers as (still) kids and adults as college students. I would still recommend this set though. Read it for the sake of experience.
I also did care for the characters that I knew it will hurt me if any of them got hurt badly because this duology taught me about unexpected friendships. I never thought it’s possible to get to know these characters as if they are confiding their secrets and personal life with me, not just as their reader, but as a person they’d like to get to know, too.
I am rating this book 3.5 stars.
Quoted from the Book:
“Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. 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.”
“She smiled then, her cheeks red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.”
“No mourners, no funerals. Another way of saying good luck. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”
“We meet fear. We greet the unexpected visitor and listen to what he has to tell us. When fear arrives, something is about to happen.”
“And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.”
The Thought Balloons 
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