Key themes
- The heist as a form that tests character under pressure
- A criminal found family — the team that becomes home
- Ambition, survival and the city that produces both
About this book
A crew of teenage outcasts pull off an impossible heist; slick, dark and endlessly entertaining.
Published in 2015, Six of Crows was both a critical and commercial success, praised for its complex morality and ensemble cast. It is set in the same world as Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy.
Discussion questions
- The novel is structured as a heist. How does Bardugo use the heist format — its planning, its complications, its reversals — to reveal character?
- Kaz Brekker is morally complex — a criminal who is also the team's most capable member. How does Bardugo develop him as a protagonist while refusing to romanticise what he does?
- Each crew member has a specific trauma in their backstory. How does Bardugo use this — does it feel like depth, or like a formula?
- Ketterdam is a city built on commerce, exploitation and extreme inequality. How does Bardugo use the setting to make political points about capitalism and power?
- Six of Crows is often praised as the finest entry point into the Grishaverse. What does it do well as a standalone — and what does it deliberately withhold to make a sequel necessary?
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