Six of Crows (ARC) Review

this week i read an ARC called "Six of Crows" and oh, sweet baby Jesus, it was glorious!

let’s all just start worshiping Leigh Bardugo because my, oh my, has she written something so wonderful, so amazing, that she must be a book god.

seriously, guys, she has outdone herself. (how??! i loved her Grisha Trilogy so much already!) she blew me away. how do I even begin to share my love of this book with you guys? i had so so much fun while reading this book. i laughed, i cried, i got anxious, i panicked, i swooooned!

first, lets get some background! if you didn't know about, or you haven't read (how could you?!), the Grisha Trilogy, i will recommend you do. (it is so incredibly awesome!) the Grisha Trilogy takes place in Ravka and "Six of Crows" takes place in another country called Kerch but in order to grasp some of the characters (Nina!) i think you should read the Grisha Trilogy first. ofc you don't need to but hey, you could be missing out. 

also, just a fyi for those who have read it, no we don't get to see our beloved characters but i didn't mind at all because we got SIX NEW AND INSANELY GOOD ONES!

so let's talk characters!

the convict! oh, Kaz Brekker. guys, you're gonna be head over heals for this little demjin! he is just the perfect batch of everything. the good, the bad, the sexy, the raspy voice, the sexy leather gloves, the cleverness! 

"The boy they called Dirtyhands didn't need a reason any more than he needed permission—to break a leg, sever an alliance, or change a man's fortunes with the turn of a card."

Kaz is the leader of the Dregs, a gang in Ketterdam. he answers to his boss, Per Haskell, but basically, since the age of twelve, Kaz has been building himself a reputation as the most badass, scariest shit ever. He comes off with a very familiar vibe as another Bardugo character we love. . . but wait, i may love Kaz more! SAY WUT? yeah, i know. he also reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. he's clever and blunt and very careless towards other people's feelings. he's very much the anti-hero.

"A liar, a thief, and utterly without conscience."

then we have Jesper, the sharpshooter! oh, what a charmer! he was witty and a total stud. besides being very, very good with guns, Jesper is also a gambler. and he has his own problems, poor baby, but he sure does look at everything half full! basically he's another badass. then there's Wylan! aw! i adore Wylan so much. he was a bit nerdy and a total fish out of water. he comes from a wealthy family and trying to fit in with the Dregs is a bit hard for him! it was also hilarious for us! 

"Why did you move out of your father's house?" Jesper asked.

"It was time," Wylan said tightly.

"Idealist? Romantic? Revolutionary?

"Idiot?" suggested Nina. "No one chooses to live in the Barrel if he has another option."

which leads me to Nina! ahhhh, my wonderful Nina! i love her so much. she's a Grisha, a Heartrender <3 her backstory is my favorite (right next to Kaz's) and what she's been through, i think, will have everyone falling in love with her. Nina is sexy, beautiful, and loves to eat and is a serious sweetheart! she was a part of the Second Army, um hello! can we say badass! she's fierce and loyal and so strong! basically, everything a great female character should be. 

"Nina loved her country and loved her people. She still believed in the future of Ravka and in the Second Army."

and Bardugo does give us our fair share of strong female characters. Inej is just as magnificent as Nina <3 Inej is the spy of the group. deadly and beautiful. the Wraith, they call her. she is the retriever of secrets. and she's such a well-formed character (and i can't say more because the way Bardugo slowly lets the story unfold is an experience itself) but Inej is battling many demons on her own, past and present ones! i also love that she has a strong sense of faith! even though life has not been generous with her, Inej has a strong hold of her beliefs<3

"Tonight her Saints were kind—two men were firing on the docks with their backs to her. She dispatched them with two quick thrusts of her blades. Six bodies, six lives taken. She was going to have to do a lot of penance, but she'd helped even the odds a bit in the Dregs' favor."

AHH! bless Bardugo for female empowerment! and lastly, my sweet baby: Matthias! and i can't really say much because his entire reveal was SUCH a shocker. i just want to say he is the most purest, saddest, complex, sweetest character Bardugo has created. my poor, poor baby! every chapter of his was like a needle to the heart! small, excruciating, pins stabbing you. he went through such a inner fight from the moment we meet him! i love him so much!

"In the good dreams, he slammed her to the ground and throttled her, watching the life drain from her eyes, heart full of vengeance—finally, finally. In the bad dreams, he kissed her."

*starts sobbing* so there you have our six wonderfully diverse outcast! now onto the story!

in the very first chapter, we meet a Corporalnik, a Healer. she is forced to heal a little boy after his arm was intentionally cut. she heals him and everything is okay, but then she is forced to take a drug called jurda parem. and the little boy is cut again and this time she heals him faster than before—thanks to the drug. except that the drug also does something more than just amplify her powers! she gets new ones and then things go bat-shit crazy!

Kaz is then contracted by the Kerch Council (rich merchants and stuff) to infiltrate the Fjerdan's Ice Court! but ha! Kaz is all like, "i dont think so!" because the Ice Court has never ever been breached before and to try to break into it would be a suicide mission because the Fjerdan's are some scary ass people and all around seem freaking intimidating! 

but the Kerch Council make an impossible to pass in the form of 20 million kruge, which is a ton of money! so Kaz, being the greedy bastard he is, accepts. 

"He'd need a very specialized team, a desperate team that wouldn't balk at the real possibility that they'd never come back from this job."

so boom! the heist is set! things go the way they're planned, things don't go the way they're planned. there is a BUNCH of surprises and twist! oh so many clever, clever twist. 

and there's romance! oh! the romance, the ships! i loved them allllllll! everything fell perfectly together. and every ship was beautifully developed, i think that may have been my favorite part. 

the world building was marvelous. i feel like i can walk the streets of Ketterdam and tell you all about the coffeehouses, the taverns, the gangs, the Barrel! i was mesmerized by Fjerdan and their culture and their rituals. the druskelle were crazy but i liked learning about them very much.

i kept having dreams that i was in this world and it's because Bardugo's writing is impeccable. it all felt like a film playing inside my head. there is so much beauty in this book!

so, there you have it! if you haven't pre-ordered it already, what are you waiting for? i swear you're going to enjoy this baby.

you can read the first two chapters here!

thank you to Fierce Reads, Molly Brouillette, and Henry Holt and Company for the advance copy!<3

Snow Like Ashes Review

this past january i read a book called "snow like ashes" and let me tell you: i want to marry this book. 

published in october 2014, “snow like ashes” is a new ya fantasy novel by sara raasch. i can say with so much conviction that you need to read this book because it is everything you want. yes, you heard me right. i absolutely adored this book. it was a refreshing new story and it included a great new female heroine. 

oh that heroine! she is an exceptional protagonist. after having read so many book of the ya fantasy genre, a lot of the female protagonist come to have the same characteristics. i found that meira [pronounced as may-ruh?] wasn't like that from the start. she wasn't annoying or overbearing. i found myself connecting with her easily and feeling the strength she had echoing within me. meira is possessed by a strong need to prove herself. she wants to show that she is a worthy “winterian” fighter and capable of being a good soldier.

“But no matter how often I prove myself, I can never push beyond his restrictions—though that won’t stop me from trying. That’s what all of us do: keep trying to live, to survive, to get our kingdom back no matter what.” 

she was raised by sir, a general of the winter kingdom which has been conquered by the spring kingdom.  so she's been living in barren lands since she was a baby, along with other survivors from their fallen kingdom [there's only like 8 of them including king mather of winter with whom our heroine is totally in love with]. those who didn't manage to escape were enslaved by the king of spring. so on the run in a vacant land, meira is trying to learn to fight and to take a stand for her king *swoon* and for her kingdom that was stolen. 

“Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.”

and boy, does the blizzard get going! so many things happen! so. many. in order for meira and king mather to win winter back they have to find the locket- which is a conduit and can help harness magical powers. when their group finds the location of winter's locket, meira is determined to get it.

one of my favorite things about this book is the world. <3 my goodness, i love it. basically there are 8 kingdoms within the land of primoria. 

four kingdoms of eternal season: Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring.

since meira is a winterian, we learned a lot from that world and not so much about the others. [but that's okay because i'm sure we'll see them in future books!] winterians, like meira and mather, have pale skin, with white hair and ice blue eyes.  they have super crazy traditions like:

“All Winterians are cradled in bowls of snow on the fifth day after their birth.” 

“Winterian weddings are held during thirst morning snow. The bride and groom drink from a cup of water, and the water that remains is frozen in a perfect circle to represent unity. The circle is buried underneath the ceremony site.” 

isn't that just so adorable! these little traditions help make winter believable. i want to be a winterian! 

then there’s the other four kingdoms that cycle through the seasons: cordell,paisly, ventralli, and yakim. we only get to explore one of these kingdoms [i won't say much on it because i want you to go in blind!] but think of them like regular kingdoms we typically see in movies or other stories. 

i don't know what else i can say to convince you to read this book. if you own it, read it! put it on top of that tbr pile. if you don't own it, why? look at that cover! don't you want it on your bookshelf? you know you do.