Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Synopsis:

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Crooked Kingdom was everything I expected and more. Leigh Bardugo struck once more after the masterpiece we all know Six of Crows was.

Crooked Kingdom is the second book of the Six of Crows duology by (queen) Leigh Bardugo. After leaving barely alive from the Ice Court, Kaz and his crew will seek revenge. Nobody should mess up with them because, after leaving victorious from the heist, they feel invincible (and they are ;) )

How to begin? This book had a lot of pressure since Six of Crows was an uncut diamond and his continuation had set the bar quite high. And as you have probably already noticed, it kept up to my expectations and filled even more. The previous book was mostly set on Fjerda, in the Ice Court, but this second one gave us a deeper view into Ketterdam, the place where criminals learn to survive and everything is found at the right price, even vengeance. Contrastingly to Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom was never slow. It went directly to the action and, as we already knew the characters, we were able to see them grow together as a family and advance as people. I have a devotion to this book and characters that I can not believe. I want to be as badass as Nina is, bold as Inej, intelligent as Wayland, protective as Mathias, loyal as Jesper, and superior as Kaz. I absorbed the book in 2 days and I still can’t process that in the next couple of years, I will not read anything more about my babies.

Leigh Bardugo made Ketterdam look real. We could feel the intensity of the city, with its shadows but also its bright parts. Even though Ketterdam is not the most suitable place to live a peaceful life, it is the Dregs’s home. Bardugo travels over the topics of love, friendship, loyalty, treason, and more. Every character is so stubborn that they will never accept their own feelings until they find themselves sacrificing themselves for their crew. She paints them as people who are cold and bad, but you very well know that that coldness is just a mask they use. They build themselves a wall in order to be protected by the darkness that every corner of Ketterdam awards- where behind that wall you encounter the feelings and emotions they interpret as flaws. With this novel, we could see Wayland’s point of view for the first time. I completely fell in love with him. More than I already was. In my opinion, he went through a lot, and he deserves the best. I enjoyed getting to know more about his sad past and how he weaves it into his present. He makes choices in where you see the connection it has to his former years, and how a great deal of those things still affects him.

There is a moment when you get to the point where you feel that nothing could surprise you any more because you can’t understand how someone has the superability to acquire such a superior mind. There was no look, no word, no movement I could have predicted in this novel. As it was on Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom was breathtaking. Each page was a new world where the only place I could fit my thoughts was the moment I had to pause to turn the page.

Have you ever felt like the continuation of a book never keeps up to your expectations? Do you have the feeling that after a great book always comes a mediocre one? Well, if that is the case, leave your feelings aside and read this book now because it is worth it 100%