Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo sees Kaz and his crew return — instead of divvying up their heist reward, they're fighting for their lives, settling scores with rivals and saving the Grisha world.
What I like ✅ a diverse, interesting cast of characters ✅ descriptive language and solid, colourful descriptions ✅ some great character moments, particularly between Inej and Kaz
What I didn't like ✖ the plot reads like it was placed through a blender; too many plotholes, deux ex machina, abandoned plotlines — it's like the characters are constantly playing whack-a-mole with plot conflict ✖ terrible pacing — the first part of the book was slow, the second was too quick; moments which needed more time were rushed and moments which were boring were dragged out, enough talking and planning already! ✖ too many Tumblr moments ✖ purposefully withholds information from the reader to create tension ✖ it strayed too far away from the formula of the first book — in the first book we had a character driven book underpinned by a steady plot, in this book we had a garbled plot with contrived character development ✖ the characters were hit and miss; Bardugo made Matthias such a useless character with a lame ending ✖ bad character flaws — Kaz is AMAZING at everything he does, even outrunning Wylan with his cane; Jesper's gambling problems get magically solved (idk because of love or something?) Rating 2/5 🌟
Genre: fantasy Verdict: a weak sequel to a strong first book QOTD: what is your spirit animal?