Crooked Kingdom

Storytelling at its finest! L.Bardugo is a master

Leigh Bardugo does not disappoint in Crooked Kingdom the sequel to Six of Crows. It is the ending of the duology which could have easily been a trilogy...my selfish want as I love the world Leigh has built. As with Six of Crows the book continues with each character providing their POV. Not my favorite style of writing but Leigh pulls it off well in both books.
Don't want to provide any spoilers but the journey to the end is worth it. Ok..one tiny spoiler which made me VERY HAPPY is Kaz and the crew get help from some very special characters of the Grisha trilogy. Yeah it felt a bit gratuitous on Leigh's part but I enjoyed it anyway.

Now for the narrators...anytime it gets past 2 narrators I find it distracting. Elizabeth Evans (Nina) and Lauren Fortgang (Inej) were brilliant and well cast to the characters. Their last scenes at the end of the book were AMAZING and worth the whole listen! As for the men...returning narrators Fred Berman (Kaz), Brandon Rubin (Jesper), Jay Snyder (Matthias), Roger Clark (Pekka) gave very consistent performances to Six of Crows and matched the characters well. Jay Snyder made me fall in love with Matthias or maybe with Jay himself ;-). New to Crooked Kingdom...Kevin T Collins (Wylan) and Peter Ganim (Jan). I don't think Kevin gave a bad performance but he had almost all the pronunciations of the characters and the world incorrect which made his performance distracting. I kept correcting him while I was listening. Don't let it deter you from choosing to the book. Just know that it is coming and you will have to suck it up a bit when you listen.

19 of 19 people found this review helpful

Perfect, but now what?

Loved it. This book leaves me with that rare feeling that I don't know what to read next. Actually, the even rarer condition that I need a break from reading so I can continue to savor this book a little longer. I don't think I can review it properly. However, it's a story intricately wound and wonderfully wicked. I loved getting to know each of the characters, even though Kaz is the star, you learn to appreciate all six of the gang. The settings and fantasy elements were great - sometimes helter skelter and at other times melodic. The ending. That was perfect. It's worthy of recommendation!

PS - Agree with others that Wylan's narrator was terrible for the part, and still this didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book.

32 of 33 people found this review helpful

WHY YOU TAKE MY FAVORITE NARRATOR?!

You get four stars, sir, simply for not using my favorite narrator from last book. This story is so good, but I felt like I was slapped in the face when we get to Kaz's POV maybe halfway through and IT'S NOT THE SAME GUY! UGH!

13 of 13 people found this review helpful

Great story, so-so performance and production

The story was great. Kept me on the edge of my seat. I really didn't like the narration for Wylan, though. His rendition of Kaz's voice was hard to listen to, his pronunciation of names, places, and words was gratingly inconsistent, and there was an audible hiss throughout.

10 of 10 people found this review helpful

Great story, hit or miss performers

First of all I love this story, and the different voices are mostly wonderful. Each lends so much to the tale, and whether it was planned this way or not, each sort of lends their own viewpoint--we get to see how each character sounds, from the point of view of each character. The performer for Wyland was a bit off, though--i can't quite describe it, but it was somewhat jarring to listen to, and he made Kaz sound like an old lady, which was an odd choice.

The performer for Jesper was odd too--after having a normal American accent for the last book and most of this one, towards the end he started having a sort of bastardized cockney/Australian lilt to some things, and not only when Jesper was speaking but when other characters were speaking, too! It was super weird, like why is Nina suddenly talking this way? It made the whole thing seem poorly edited or poorly directed, which is a shame.

All that being said, this is still one of the most engaging and fun stories I've listened to in a while, and the performers for Kaz and Inej in particular were fantastic. I would absolutely listen to it again.

17 of 18 people found this review helpful

Great except for one thing

Book is awesome! I loved it.....except for whoever narrated Wyland and whenever Wyland was talking for Kaz.....holy evil old man gravel. Sort of rediculous!

35 of 38 people found this review helpful

I love a lot of narrators

Except for this time. As mentioned, Wyland's voice for Kaz sounds like he was the Wicked Witch. The fact that every narrator did a different voice for each character made it a bit hard to follow. I didn't listen to Six of Crow, I read the physical book, and everything made a lot more sense that when I started listening to this one. Since each character sounds completely different, it's harder to follow, but it still wasn't all bad.

I loved the actual story, I think it was a great follow up to Six of Crows, and I hope there is another book in the series soon!

16 of 17 people found this review helpful

ocean's 11 with a darker twist and a bit of magic

amazing, absolutely amazing. consider me a fan of the author. I will gladly seek out their past, and future works. while I do agree that it would have been interesting to have each character read their own lines. I didn't necessarily mind the change of pace from one chapter to the next.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Finally, new concepts

This relates to both "Six of Crows" and "Crooked Kingdom." I read A lot, and sometimes start to feel that the story formula is repeated , only with tweaked characters and settings, etc. This is the first compelling story that really made you unceartain what to expect (in a good way).

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Stunning end to a story that I hope will continue!

Where does Crooked Kingdom rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

After listening too close to 1000 audiobooks, this book along with part one of the story has to be in the top five if not the best. One has to read to first book in order to truly comprehend this book.Both books have been created by a master storyteller and it shows.

What did you like best about this story?

This book has a number of twists and curves in it; just as you think you know what is going to happen, your thrown for a loop and a whole new story is there for your experience. I also like books that bring out our emotions when listening and this book has a lot of that.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

It took a few chapters to get used to multiple narrators doing each character but once I got used to it it was fine. I am particularly partial to Lauren Fortgang, really like her body of work.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Don't double cross a person who less to loose then you!

Any additional comments?

If I was stuck on an island for a long time and could only take a few books with me the Six of Crows and the Crooked Kingdom would definitely be with me. Buy it, read it, and revel in the emotional experience...

3 of 3 people found this review helpful