“Why do you guys say that, anyway? No mourners, no funerals? Why not just say good luck or be safe?”
“We like to keep our expectations low.”

god damn.

i should first note that the day i read this book, i told myself i was going to sleep at 1am and finish it the next day. i slept at 3am. i went to school the next day and went home with a fever. i make very good life decisions! but yes, this book.

ya fiction is a garbage heap. i know this. you know this. i live in a trash compactor. soc + ck, however, deserve to be put on a pedestal to be praised and worshipped by the unworthy [read: SARAH J MAAS]. it is everything i want in fiction. it is literally everything i want in fiction. my standards for what good writing is have been totally wrecked by very bad books.

i personally feel that the entire reason why soc + ck are so successful is because leigh bardugo knows how to listen to criticism and improve on her own writing. i read soc before reading tgt, and tgt is mediocre at best. it's like a 3/5 stars. but the vast majority of criticisms that i have for bardugo's writing are wiped out in soc and ck. worldbuilding is okay? worldbuilding gets deeper. character writing isn't strong? character writing becomes complex. not enough representation? the soc cast has multiple pocs, characters who struggle with addiction and ptsd, characters who are ex-sex workers, characters with disabilities, and quality gay romance that succeeds. i'm so proud of leigh bardugo.

ck is a very good sequel to soc. i mean this in the best of ways. it's basically able to cover the bases that soc doesn't in terms of characterisation and plot development, and it isn't awkward to me at all. i've read some reviews that say that ck is very fast-paced, and it is, it's a very plot heavy, dense book. based on the sheer amount of things happening, i could see why people would claim that it's convoluted, but there isn't an incomprehensible number of things happening at any given time, so it's quite readable if you can keep up.

the plot is reasonably complex, which is good. when i read soc a year ago, i think one of the things i said about it was that the plot twists were quite predictable at some points, and tgt suffered from this at a much worser level. ck is different. the sheer amount of things happening makes it hard to predict developments, i think. although, the way in which the reader finds out kaz's grand plans becomes somewhat repetitive after a while, but i'm okay with that. so.

i think the most standout thing about ck is still the way that bardugo manages her cast, though. her character writing got so much better from tgt, because everyone has Real Complex Problems that they don't easily resolve, and fundamentally different characters. like, wow. i wish i could write character diversity that well. also the representation is Good Shit. gays?? that don't die?? and one is poc?? and they have a well-developed romance?? and the book isn't about them being Gay?? and they're not reduced to their gay?? sign me tf up that's some good shit if i do say so myself

also another thing is that characters who don't get as much development in soc get All The Development in ck. like, i would say that nina/matthias/kaz/inej get most of their problems and development established in soc, but wylan/jesper get the main focus in ck. which is nice! it's good and balanced and everyone ends the series with character development, except matthias, because he's dead. and even then, his death resolves his character arc well, so it's development anyway. because he spends the entirety of two books unravelling his screwed up country biases and he gets stabbed by someone who is basically past!him. it makes perfect sense!!!

like, everyone is complaining about matthias being dead as "just a thing for drama" and i'm like. no. you don't understand. it makes perfect sense. like, not just in terms of matthias's character arc throughout the two books but also bardugo's Actual Keeping It Real Storytelling Need to kill off a character. matthias is the perfect choice. if she killed off jesper/wylan, it would be bury your gays. if she killed off kaz/inej, that's really for drama. so it has to be nina or matthias, and nina has suffered enough through the book. i have no human feelings to empathise with the death of any character, but i appreciate it very much as a writing move. i dunno man.

also everyone says that kaz is Too Gary Stu like man leave kaz alone he's literally the Most Repressed character. he's hypercompetent, but the flaws that he has as a person and the parts where he trips up are very much acknowledged in the writing. like he literally says "i screwed up" wrt to pekka rollins and the money so. i think it's because he learns from his mistakes and is The Literal Most Slytherin, so his screw ups in soc don't happen again in ck. like, kaz is very much the kind of character to get back up when they get knocked down a billion times, so i guess the same applies. also, like, there's no time for them to settle down and stop. kaz and inej are 100% the kind of people to shove their own personal/interpersonal problems to the side for necessity, which is a nice change from alina and mal whining all over the place about their insecurities in tgt. it makes sense!

i'm quite ehhh about the romance in the series, because i think the characters have more value outside of their relationships than in the relationships, but they're not nauseatingly written. sometimes it's cute, so it's okay. it's not like, "velvet-wrapped steel" levels of gross. i think it's very nice that the romance is a casual side thing that exists. and everyone can compartmentalise! kind of.

also?? nikolai?? my son?? appears in this book?? wowee i love nikolai

also the worldbuilding got better! bardugo's writing style is really nice. it's very rich descriptively, but in a way that's not too purple prose flowery. ahhh. good writing!!! in a ya novel!!! what a rarity!!! i'm going to fight sarah j maas when i finish empire of storms what a trainwreck of a book

but yes crooked kingdom is Real Best ya novel 5/5 stars Good Shit Would Experience Again