CROOKED KINGDOM BY LEIGH BARDUGO {review}

Hardcover, 546 pages

Published September 20th 2016 by Henry Holt and Company
Rating: ★★★★★

[WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AFTER READ MORE]

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom worked together really well as a duology. With the first book more of a heist, fast-paced and relatively straight-forward, Crooked Kingdom is a complicated con, with twists and turns that wrap up all the loose threads from both books.

Kaz Brekker is again the standout character, his brilliant mind and ruthless ambition make him fascinating to read. The conflict between his desire to destroy Pekka Rollins and his complex feelings for Inej provides the most interesting threads, particularly when it comes to Kaz's inability to touch another person's skin without flashbacks and a panic attack.

Pekka Rollins and Jan Van Eck were suitable villains, the extent of their malice expanding from Six of Crows. Van Eck in particular was a great villain, serving to expand the perspective of his son, Wylan, who did not get his own point of view chapters in the previous book. Wylan's relatively innocent disposition works well in contrast to the personalities of the other characters, particularly with Jesper, with whom he starts a sweet romance.

ONCE IN A TOWN CALLED MOTH BY TRILBY KENT {review}

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published September 6th 2016 by Tundra Books
Rating: ★★★★

Once in a Town Called Moth is the kind of book you give a teenager if you want to introduce them to Canadian literature.

The premise is interesting enough: a young teenage girl and her father leave their small Mennonite community in Bolivia and settle in Toronto. Why they left is a major thread of the story.

The main character, Ana, is fourteen and just starting high school. After growing up in a reserved and small community, the city - and high school - is a bizarre world she's never before encountered. Ana is a lovely narrator, expressing how she is caught between worlds and emotions with aplomb.

The narrative switches between the present in Toronto and Ana's recollections of Colony Felicidad in Bolivia, which works in more than one way by revealing more of her past as well as containing pieces to the emotional puzzle Ana hopes to solve about her missing mother.

At just over 200 pages, Once in a Town Called Moth is a very quick read with only a small cast of characters and no romance. It's about Ana's struggle with family and identity, which makes it stand apart from a good number of other YA books. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it as a relatively quick intro to the Canlit genre.

SIX OF CROWS BY LEIGH BARDUGO {review}

Hardcover, 546 pages

Published September 29th 2015 by Henry Holt and Company
Rating: ★★★★★

There was a lot of hype for this book, which put me off for a while as I often find myself left cold by the most popular YA, but luckily I very much enjoyed Six of Crows.

While it's fairly obvious that the book takes place in a pre-imagined world from another series, it actually made the book more enjoyable to have not read the others. Feeling dropped into another world is one of my favourite immersive techniques for writing and it worked particularly well for Six of Crows.

Each character was interesting in their own right, their motivations and pasts intricate and made the characters come alive. I particularly liked the complex relationship between Nina and Matthias, I felt that was more intricately written than most bland 'opposites attract' romances in YA. I also really enjoyed Inej - there was something about her I found easy to connect to.

One quibble however is that the characters are aged 16 to 18. It felt a bit ridiculous because based on their backstories and the roles they played in the story. I kept thinking they were each about five or so years older - still young, but not children. It made me wonder if the author made them teenagers so that the book would qualify as YA rather than any narrative need for the characters to be that age.

But overall, it was a fun, fast-paced heist book and I greatly enjoyed it.