Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Genre: YA fantasy
Short Summary: I don't have enough brain cells to summarize this. It involves lots of heist and tragic backstories, though.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Violence, gore, trauma, death of wolves, allusion to rape.
My rating: 4 stars

Plot:

The plot isn't particularly good or memorable, especially since I've read a few heist books before, but it stands out from the other heist books I've read because in all the others, the characters are always motivated by saving the world and the greater good, ect. Having characters motivated by four million kruge is a bit refreshing.

Towards the end, though, there were some inconsistencies and it seemed a bit rushed.

Characters:

The characters are the best aspect of the book. I've heard people saying that the tragic backstories are a bit much, and perhaps they are, but I'm a sucker for tragic backstories. I literally read the whole Stormlight Archive series just for flashbacks and backstories, so. . . The backstories in Six of Crows aren't a problem to me. Now, on to the characters themselves:

Kaz Brekker: I know a lot of people hate him, but I don't see where the hate is coming from, at all. I really like him. He's a male YA character with a whole badass, gritty aesthetic, and he's not abusive. He's amazingly respectful. I've read so many abusive YA guys that a character like Kaz Brekker stands out simply because he's respectful. And in his own right, he's not the most original character ever, but I still love him.

Inej Ghafa: In the first half or so of the book, I thought she was pretty bland and boring, but she developed more as the book went on. She's still not my favorite character, but she's okay.

Jesper Fahey: He was a lot of fun and still had ✨issues✨. He was one of my favorite characters, and the fact he's a sharpshooter stood out to me because I don't think I've ever read a high fantasy book with guns before.

Nina Zenik : She's probably my favorite character. I think I'm in love with her. She seemed the most unique character to me, and she's beautiful and she knows it, which is refreshing when so many female YA characters don't know they're pretty when they are.

Matthias Helvar: He's okay. I didn't like him at all originally, but when I saw more of how backstory I liked him more. He got a lot better toward the end, but he's still unoriginal and not very interesting.

Wylan Van Eyck: I felt as if I didn't know him very well. I didn't see much of his backstory, and he had a lot fewer lines of dialogue than the other characters.


Writing:

I really liked the writing style, except when it got slow, but in general the writing was really good, witty but not ridiculous, sometimes quote touching. However, I felt that it could use more description at time.

Setting

I liked the setting overall, but it didn't seem fleshed-out enough. Hopefully this will improve in the sequel.

Other:

Since I'm a sensitive soul, the gore and violence was a bit much at times, especially the violence against wolves.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Yes, I would.