Books Like Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows is the heist story that redefined young adult fantasy: Kaz Brekker, a criminal prodigy known as Dirtyhands, is offered an impossible job - break into the most secure prison in the world, the Ice Court, and rescue a scientist who has developed a drug that could change the balance of power. To do it, he assembles a crew: Inej, the spy known as the Wraith; Jesper, the sharpshooter with a gambling problem; Nina, the Grisha heartrender; Matthias, the Fjerdan soldier who hates her; and Wylan, the runaway with a secret.

The book is a heist, a revenge story, and a study of a crew of outcasts who become, over the course of the job, a family. It is fast, funny, and deeply felt. If you have finished it and want more, here is where to go next.

If You Loved the Heist: Impossible Jobs, Carefully Planned#

The engine of Six of Crows is the heist: the plan, the crew, the obstacles, the double-crosses. These books are about heists of the same kind.

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)#

The essential companion: Locke Lamora is the greatest thief in the city of Camorr, and the book is about his crew, the Gentlemen Bastards, and the heist that goes wrong. It is darker, funnier, and more profane than Bardugo’s book, but it shares the delight in the heist - the planning, the con, the crew - and it is the essential next read for anyone who loved the mechanics of the job.

The Crown’s Game (Evelyn Skye)#

A different kind of competition - two enchanters, one throne, a game that only one can survive - but it shares Six of Crows’ structure: a high-stakes contest, a cast of brilliant young people, and the sense that the game is rigged. It is set in imperial Russia, and it delivers the same adrenaline.

Six of Crows, and the Art of the Job#

The book’s great pleasure is its structure: the plan, the flashbacks that explain the plan, the way everything goes wrong and the way the crew adapts. Bardugo builds the heist with the precision of a puzzle box - every piece is in place, every character has a role, and the reader is trusted to keep up. The book is a masterclass in the heist structure, and it rewards re-reading enormously.

If You Loved the Crew: Outcasts Who Become a Family#

The heart of Six of Crows is its crew: six outcasts, each with a skill and a secret, thrown together for an impossible job, becoming the people who would die for each other. These books are about crews of the same kind.

Six of Crows, and the Family You Choose#

The book’s deepest subject is found family: Kaz’s crew are not friends when the job begins - they are strangers, rivals, even enemies - and the book is about the slow, grudging discovery that they belong to each other. Every member of the crew is an outcast: a cripple, a spy, a gambler, a soldier, a traitor, a runaway. The book is about what happens when the outcasts find each other - the family that no one else would choose, choosing each other. It is the book’s great achievement, and it is why the series has such devoted readers.

The Raven Boys (Maggie Stiefvater)#

Blue and the four Raven Boys are a found family of the same kind: five very different people, thrown together by a quest, becoming the people who would die for each other. It shares Six of Crows’ found-family structure and its conviction that the group is the story.

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T. J. Klune)#

An orphanage full of extraordinary children, and the caseworker who finds a family there: Klune’s book is the coziest possible version of the found-family story, and it shares Six of Crows’ conviction that the strange and the different belong together.

If You Loved the Mastermind: The Genius With a Plan#

Kaz Brekker is one of the great masterminds of young adult fiction: a crippled boy from the Barrel who has built an empire of crime on nothing but his mind. These books have masterminds of the same kind.

Six of Crows, and the Mind of Kaz Brekker#

Kaz is the book’s engine: a boy who has been broken by the world and has rebuilt himself into a weapon - a mind that sees every angle, plans every step, and trusts no one. The book is about the cost of that: the walls he has built, the trauma he carries, the slow discovery - over the course of the job - that the crew he assembled might be the family he never expected. Kaz is one of the great characters in young adult fiction, and the book’s final chapters, where his walls finally crack, are among the most moving in the genre.

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)#

Locke Lamora is Kaz’s spiritual ancestor: a thief whose genius is his mind, and whose crew is his family. The two books share the mastermind structure, and readers of one will adore the other.

Artemis (Andy Weir)#

A different kind of mastermind: Jazz Bashara, a criminal on the moon, with a scheme that goes wrong. It shares Six of Crows’ delight in a brilliant criminal with a plan, in a science-fiction register.

If You Loved the World: The Grishaverse#

Bardugo built a complete world for her series: the Grishaverse, with its magic (the Grisha, the orders of the Small Science), its nations (Ravka, Kerch, Fjerda), and its politics. These books build worlds of the same depth.

Shadow and Bone (Leigh Bardugo)#

The trilogy that started it all: Alina Starkov discovers she is the Sun Summoner, the Grisha who can destroy the Shadow Fold - a swath of darkness that has split her country for centuries. It is set in the same world as Six of Crows, and it shares the magic and the politics, with a more conventional chosen-one structure.

The King of Scars (Leigh Bardugo)#

The sequel duology: Nikolai Lantsov, the king of Ravka, must face the monster inside him. It shares the Grishaverse and its politics, and it is essential reading for anyone who loved the world of Six of Crows.

Six of Crows, and the World of the Barrel#

One of the book’s great pleasures is its setting: the Barrel, the criminal district of Ketterdam, with its gangs, its gambling dens, its canals and its dangers. The book is saturated in its place - the grime, the greed, the desperate striving - and the world feels lived-in in a way that rewards careful reading. The Grishaverse is one of the great fantasy worlds of the century, and the Barrel is its best corner.

If You Loved the Revenge: The Past That Drives the Present#

Beneath the heist, Six of Crows is a revenge story: Kaz’s plan is not just about the money - it is about the man who took everything from him, and the chance to take it back. These books are about revenge of the same kind.

Six of Crows, and the Price of Revenge#

The book’s deepest thread is Kaz’s revenge: the plan is built around it, the job is a means to it, and the book is about what revenge costs - the way it consumes, the way it blinds, the way it is never quite enough. Kaz’s story is the story of every revenge narrative, told with complete seriousness: the revenge is sweet, and it is not enough, and the person who survives it is not the person who began it.

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)#

The essential revenge story: Edmond Dantès, wrongly imprisoned, escapes and spends years destroying the men who framed him. It is the ancestor of every revenge narrative, and it shares Six of Crows’ understanding that revenge is a discipline - and a poison.

Vicious (V. E. Schwab)#

Two college friends, a near-death experience, and the discovery that they have become something more than human: the book is about the enmity between them, and it shares Six of Crows’ darkness and its interest in the cost of obsession.

If You Loved the Ensemble: Many Voices, One Job#

Six of Crows is told from multiple points of view - six characters, six perspectives, one job - and the book’s structure is one of its great pleasures. These books use the same structure.

Six of Crows, and the Many Voices#

The book’s multiple narrators are its signature: each member of the crew gets their own chapters, their own pasts, their own reasons for being there. The structure is the book’s method: you understand the job from six angles, and the whole is more than the sum of the parts. It is a structure that has been imitated widely since, and it is executed with complete control.

The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)#

A novel told in the voices of five women - a missionary’s wife and daughters - as they follow him to the Belgian Congo. It shares Six of Crows’ conviction that multiple voices can tell a truth no single narrator can reach, in a very different register.

A Song of Ice and Fire (George R. R. Martin)#

The master of the multiple-perspective structure: Martin’s series is told from dozens of points of view, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Six of Crows is a miniature of the same architecture.

If You Loved the Banter: Dialogue That Cracks#

One of the great pleasures of Six of Crows is its dialogue: the banter between the crew, the insults, the grudges, the jokes. These books have dialogue of the same quality.

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)#

Locke and his crew talk the way Kaz’s crew talks: fast, funny, and full of insults that are really affection. It is the essential companion for readers who loved the banter.

Six of Crows, and the Voices of the Crew#

The book’s dialogue is its life: Jesper’s jokes, Nina’s teasing, the grudging respect between Matthias and the crew he was raised to hate. The banter is not decoration - it is how the characters reveal themselves, how the found family forms, how the reader falls in love with the crew. Bardugo writes dialogue the way the best screenwriters do: every line reveals character.

Building Your Own Crew: A Reading Order#

Here is a suggested path that moves from the closest match outward:

• Start with Crooked Kingdom to continue the story.
• Move to Shadow and Bone for the trilogy that started the world.
• Try The Lies of Locke Lamora for the other great heist.
• Pick up The Raven Boys for the found family.
• End with The Count of Monte Cristo when you want the ancestor of the revenge story.

For more books with this kind of depth, our clean historical fiction themes and values guide explains what makes these stories work, and our family-friendly clean mystery books list gathers stories with real puzzles and real stakes. The stories section of our site is full of guides like this one, so there is always another job to pull.

The Crew That Chose Each Other#

Six of Crows endures because it is a book about found family - about the outcasts who find each other, the crew that becomes the people who would die for each other, the family no one else would choose. Kaz’s crew are not heroes; they are criminals, misfits, and survivors, and the book’s triumph is the way it makes you love them - the way the banter, the betrayals, and the sacrifices add up to something more than a job. The books on this list are crews like that: thieves and masterminds and outcasts, thrown together for impossible jobs, becoming families in the process. The job is waiting. The crew is assembling. And nothing - not the Ice Court, not the world - is going to stop them.