4/5 Stars 
 There's really only two or three YA series that I like. All my reading life I've just had bad luck with the demographic. A series was either really disappointing to me or it was so terrible that I wanted to quit reading forever. Six of Crows was the last and final chance I was going to give the YA demographic. As it turns out, I was very pleased with what I read. 
 I knew Six of Crows takes place in the Grishaverse and I went into it anyway despite never reading the original Grisha Trilogy. The premise of Six of Crows was so interesting that I didn't want to read an entire trilogy before reading it. Plus, other readers have told me that I won't be confused if I hadn't read the Grisha Trilogy. Thankfully, they were right. Although I was a little confused with who Grisha were and some civil war that went on (something that happened in the GT I'm sure). I was able to put together the pieces of what was what, so I finished this book with very few questions. There were probably many other GT references that wooshed over my head, but I'll learn what those are when I read it. 
 So from what I read (correct me if I'm wrong, but I hope I'm not) It takes place in a with a Russian setting and there's this other country that has a Nordic setting? Because that's pretty freaking cool. I may not know much about it, but the Grisha and their magic system is pretty interesting as well. Simple, and not too hard to grasp. (I guess might like the original trilogy!). 
 Now the first part of the book, I really wasn't into it. It just felt like one big Kaz Brekker circlejerk. Everyone would praise the guy for how amazing and mysterious and 
 DANGEROUS 
 he was, and then Kaz would say some fortune cookie quote related to thievery. It was very hard to take a 17 year old thug with a cane very seriously because all I could imagine was this: 
 http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Thug+wiz... (can never get images to work on this cursed site...) 
 That all started to die down later in the book, though. It wasn't until the entire group was put together and they were planning the heist was I really invested in the characters and story. I even started to really like Kaz (he's a favorite now!). This book got a lot of praise for its characters, and it got the praise it deserved. Each character had a POV chapter to look forward to. I love books where most of the characters are just as important as the main character. Because in cases like this book, all six of the Crows were main characters. Individually they're great, but the characters are at their best when they're together. The characters have such great chemistry with each other that sometimes it was more fun to see them interact than make progress in the heist. 
 I'm glad I found something YA that I really liked. Looks like I'll be starting the Grisha Trilogy, and more YA in general. I'll be looking forward to the release of Crooked Kingdom!