I know this review is a few years late, but I have opinions and nowhere else to share them so here I am.
In high school, I lost interest in reading. I think my English classes sucked the joy out of reading for me and my ADHD made it difficult for me to start and continue reading books. This was sad to me, because I like stories and I love writing, so I wanted to get back into it. I heard that Six of Crows was one of the best YA books ever; that it was mature, and diverse, and had interesting characters, so I was very excited to start reading it. When I first started it, I couldn’t get past the first two chapters. Again, I think this is something I can attribute to my ADHD. But freshman year of college I picked it back up and actually managed to make it to the last few chapters before putting it down and never picking it up again. Needless to say, I was majorly let down by this book. People kept raving about how good it was for a YA novel, 9/10 booktubers praised it like it was the next Bible, and I could only find a handful of negative reviews. But I couldn’t and still can’t see why people have such raging boners for Six of Crows.
First of all, the characters were unbelievable and stale, which is sad because many people say the characters are the best part of Soc. All of them are teenagers: teenagers! I know it’s YA but yeesh! They’ve all some how managed to acquire 12 lifetimes worth of trauma, then become feared, respected criminals in a world full of actual adults. This is bullshit! One of the characters becomes an uber talented, gold medal level gymnast, universally feared assassin in the span of a year, which is completely absurd given the fact that she’s like 16. (It would still be absurd if she was older). The main character is just as bad. You can’t become Al Capone at 17. You just can’t. I don’t care how much your trauma has hardened you, becoming a criminal master mind takes time and experience. Besides the unrealisticness of these characters, a lot of them are just boring. Kaz is a Mary Sue, Jesper is the forced comic relief who isn’t that funny, the nerdy twink (who’s so forgettable his name escapes me) is super boring, and the other two are, for the most part, there for their questionable romance. Inej was the only one I kinda liked, but again she was a “seasoned” assasin at 16 so I found it hard to take her very seriously. Also, she unironically refers to herself as “The Wraith” which is stupid. And these characters aren’t complex, or deep, and I don’t think any of them experienced much growth throughout the story. The author decided to see how much over-the-top trauma she could jam-pack into the characters she cared about, before throwing in the towel for the others and saying “uh this guy likes gambling and guns lol.” It also irks me when people try to say the characters are trope diversions. We must be living on different planets, because I swear that “male lead emotionally repressed because of his dark past” and “female lead who’s character stems from sexual abuse, who will ultimately break past male lead’s shell” are fairly common, and SoC didn’t really do anything to subvert those tropes either. Also, Petka Rollins is one of the worst antagonists in any book I’ve ever read. He has no presence, he never feels like a threat, and the fucking Volturi from Twilight are better bad guys then him. And Twilight sucks dude!
Second of all, the pacing was awful. Depending on who you talk to, Six of Crows is a fast paced nail biter, a slow paced piece that gets you thinking, or a slow burn that grows into a fast paced heist. This should not be the case. Also, why oh why would she put flashbacks in the middle of action/fighting scenes? Especially flashbacks that are super slow and long? This can work in film but it can’t in books, where each word is carefully selected to create a tone and pace for what’s happening on the page. Once your taken out of a fight scene, you can’t be thrown back in and expected to feel the same tension as before. Just put the flashbacks during the long, tedious section on the boat, or anywhere else besides a goddamn action sequence. Imagine if Tolkien had put a twelve page flashback to Pippin’s childhood in the middle of the Battle for Helms Deep, or if JK Rowling had put an arbitrary memory from the Sorcerers Stone as the Golden Trio escaped Gringotts in the Deathly Hallows: it would destroy these pivotal, tension filled moments as well as the pacing.
Thirdly, the plot: People have compared Six of Crows to Oceans 11. Jesus Christ. The plot could have been interesting, but in the end it was subpar. The only part of the entire heist I found gripping was the part where Inej climbed the incineration shaft, but everything else was meh. The premise of the plot is ridiculous. No one in their right minds would hire a group of teenagers to do something this important. Every jam had a very convenient solution that they always managed to get right, or that Kaz Mary Sued his way out of because “It’s Kaz.” Also, they consistenly make dumb ass choices like dumbass bitches. They’re trying to be stealthy and quick to sneak by the enemies? Let’s have Nina and Matthias stop the entire group so they can have a shouting match, and have no one interrupt to stop them! The entire group is relying on Kaz (who’s been portrayed as a competent leader up to this point) to do this very important part of the heist in which his love interest could be killed? Let’s have him run off on his own and be a dumb ass bitch! If the story had spent less time on the boat and Inej’s booboo, and more on the heist, it might have been better, but what’s written is written.
Fourthly, the romances are all snoozefests or troubling. Usually YA spends too much time developing the romance, this time it’s the opposite. The romance with the most screentime, Nina and Matthias, was my least favorite. A lot of the times, I think people try too hard to label the male in the romance as abusive or toxic, but dear god did I want this girl to run. It was like the fantasy version of a Nazi/Jew romance. At one point he literally compared her to an animal, he tries to strangle her, they insult each other’s cultures all the time, and I’m supposed to be rooting for them? Don’t forget the shouting match during the heist either. Inej and Kaz needed more development than they got. Normally I don’t like my books to be oversaturated with romance, but these two really needed some more scenes together to convince me of their relationship. Lastly, if you can even count it as a romance, Jesper and Twinky. People praise this book for being LGBT inclusive, but that’s just insulting. These two, despite having the cutest, healthiest, dynamic, were pushed to the back. The relationship was nothing more than cheeky flirting and there wasn’t a single explicitly romantic scene before I set down the book a few chapters from the end, unlike the other couples. Hell half of the time I was left wondering if they were actually supposed to be a thing or not because of how little content there was for them. In conclusion none of the romances were convincing or anything I wanted to root for.
Last but not least, the platonic relationships are super weak. I get the feeling I’m supposed to feel like these guys are “Found Family” by the end of everything, but I don’t. Even Jesper and Kaz, who are supposed to be BFFs, have no chemistry or moments where I truly feel like they’re good friends. The dialogue between all the characters tries too hard to be witty, sassy, or badass. It feels like everyone talks as if they’re the discount Guardians of the Galaxy. There are no moments where the entire crew kinda chills and get closer by opening up to everyone, not in a way that I can recall. By the end, I don’t feel like I’m reading about a group of kids who would die for each other, or want to go on to have another book of adventures together.
This is sort of a side note, but what’s with all the “K’s”?Just call it coffee instead of koffee, or fabrication instead of fabrikation. They still spell coffee with a “c” in Amsterdam, which is clearly where the city is based off of. Why do fantasy writers always feel like need to spell things weird, like if they change one letter for another it automatically makes their world dyfferenter or kooler. Don’t change words unless there’s a legitimate reason, which there almost never is. Also, the world building is really confusing if you haven’t read her previous books and she doesn’t explain it that well.
In conclusion, I think SoC has fooled everyone into thinking it’s not full of cliche tropes and characters by American Idoling it. What do I mean by that? Well you know on talent shows when someone might be an average singer, but they have a massive sob story so everyone wants to believe they’re better than they actually are, that’s how I feel SoC was written. The plot is mediocre and the pacing is all over the place. The relationships, romantic and platonic, are either toxic or underdeveloped. It’s a book no darker or mature than the Hunger Games, a novel about children being forced to murder each other for the entertainment of society, but has somehow tricked everyone into thinking it is. It’s the girl who dresses in all black, gets one nose piercing, and then thinks she’s the edgiest person in the entire school. Or as Daniel Greene put is so perfectly, Adam Levine.
If you actually took the time to read this far, thank you! I’ve been wanting to write a post like this for awhile, but today I said fuck it and went ahead. Do you agree or disagree? Let’s have a civil discussion in the comments!
by [deleted]