The Six of Crows Rewrite Controversy

Hi bookish friends! Today’s newsletter covers:

• Early access to my new video essay about Netflix’s cancelled Shadow and Bone TV show

• Meeting authors at the Texas Book Festival

• My thoughts on the new special edition of my favorite book, This Is How You Lose the Time War

• Reviewing Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana

• A look inside the museum where several Doctor Who episodes have been filmed

But first, let’s talk about a controversy surrounding one of the most popular YA fantasy series of the last decade: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

Six of Crows was first published in 2015, and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom, released the following year. At the end of September 2025, new editions of these books, known as the “Dregs Editions,” came out to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Six of Crows. The publisher’s description proclaimed that these editions featured “new cover art, black stained edges, and updated maps.”

There was one other new update that this description failed to mention.

In the original edition of Six of Crows, the six main characters are all aged between 16 and 18. However, as outlined in a Tumblr post from the user vilecemetery, the Dregs Edition of Six of Crows scrubs any mention of the characters’ ages. The new editions are also shelved in the adult section of the bookstore, rather than the YA section, and are priced like adult paperbacks (at first, I assumed the increased price was due to their status as special editions, but now I’m not so sure).

Do the Characters’ Ages Matter for the Plot?

I have heard many people who read Six of Crows say that they picture the characters as young adults rather than teenagers anyway, given that the crew pulls off some pretty impressive things for their age.

The character who probably benefits the most from keeping their age vague is Kaz Brekker, the mastermind of the group. While the original edition states his age as 17, his reputation in the Barrel looms so large that it might make more sense for him to have spent a couple more years building up his notoriety. Kaz’s enemies often underestimate him because of his age, but that wouldn’t be so unusual for, say, a 19-year-old.

However, for a character like Nina Zenik, changing her age causes significant continuity issues. Nina is 17 in Six of Crows, and the book states that she was too young to fight in the Ravkan civil war that occurred two years earlier in the Shadow and Bone trilogy. Aging Nina up even a couple of years would mean she was old enough to fight in the war after all, given that several 17 and 18-year-olds participated.

For other characters, the disruption caused by potentially aging them up is in the eye of the beholder. Inej Ghafa, who is 16 in the original edition, was a victim of trafficking two years before the events of Six of Crows. From the snippets I’ve seen, the age at which she was trafficked hasn’t been changed; it’s just left ambiguous how long it’s been since she escaped. Assuming we read her as being a few years older than 16, is it more emotionally devastating that the abuse she suffered is still affecting her several years later? Or is her story more resonant if she escaped more recently?

The age change for Matthias Helvar, who was part of an army that sought to kill all people gifted with magical Grisha powers and learned the error of his ways after he met Nina, has caused a particular amount of controversy. Fans are split about whether Matthias, who was 18 in the original edition, could be so easily forgiven for his bigotry if he’s aged up a few years.

Personally, I’m not sure it makes much difference whether Matthias is 18 or 20 or whatever. The book makes it clear that he’s young, inexperienced, and naive. His youthful potential for change defines his entire character, and that remains true whether or not we know his exact age.

However, the fact that the Dregs Edition is shelved in the adult section could make a difference here. In a YA book, we expect that the characters have a lot of learning to do. In an adult book, we expect the characters to take a bit more responsibility for their actions. For this reason, I don’t blame people for finding Matthias’s story a bit more uncomfortable in the context of an adult fantasy novel.

The new edition of Six of Crows doesn’t change the characters’ ages outright. Readers can still view the characters as teenagers if they want to. However, putting the Dregs Edition in the adult section with these edits points to a new marketing direction that could drastically change the way people view this series going forward.

A Fractured Fandom?

It’s unclear to me whether these changes will stay confined to the Dregs Edition. For now, it appears that the standard edition of Six of Crows retains the original text and is shelved in the YA section. But if that changes for future printings, it would grind my gears for two reasons:

1. Adult books are more expensive, so the barrier to entry for getting into the Six of Crows duology would be higher.

2. People who read Six of Crows for the first time would end up with a different view of the characters than people who read the book within the first decade of its publication. Without the ages defined, newcomers to the series would likely assume the characters are in their twenties, given that they would be picking the book up from the adult section.

A Lack of Transparency

As of this writing, neither the author nor the publisher have made a statement about these changes, and at this point I assume they’re not going to. Ultimately, I think that’s my main issue with this whole thing. Fans are left reading tea leaves: Were these changes made to align the characters’ ages with the Netflix show? Did the publisher want to tap into a new, broader market? Has Bardugo always wanted the duology to be aimed at adults, and her publisher finally let her execute her original vision?

We can argue all day about the ramifications of these edits, but if we knew why they were made, at least we would have a framework for understanding the reasons behind it. Right now, we can’t agree or disagree about the logic for these changes, because we don’t know what the logic was in the first place.

For more thoughts on these Six of Crows edits, the general practice of authors revising their books after publication, and other bookish controversies, check out the recording of an Instagram live I recently did with my friend Basma from @bookishbasma. I always love chatting with Basma, and it was so fun dissecting these issues with her!

Watch Early: Netflix’s Shadow and Bone — An Autopsy

Sticking with the Grishaverse theme, this month’s video essay is a topic I’ve been wanting to cover for a while. The TV adaptation of Shadow and Bone, the first trilogy in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse series, released on Netflix in 2021, and received a second season in 2023. However, Netflix cancelled the show after the second season due to lackluster viewing numbers.

Now, two years after the show’s cancellation, I wanted to look back on the Shadow and Bone TV show and ask what factors led to its untimely demise. Was there anything the writers could have done to save it? My musings led me to an uncomfortable conclusion: Shadow and Bone might have been doomed from the start.

The video will be public on my YouTube channel in a few days, but you get to watch it early at this unlisted link!

Meeting Authors at the Texas Book Festival

This November, I attended the Texas Book Festival for the first time! There were so many amazing authors to see and panels to attend. One highlight for me was getting to meet Tracy Deonn, the author of the excellent YA fantasy series Legendborn, and having her sign my copies of the three books!

I was also honored to meet Samira Ahmed, who is probably best known for her YA contemporary novels such as Internment and Love, Hate, and Other Filters. However, she was there mainly to talk about her most recent release: a light YA sci-fi novel called The Singular Life of Aria Patel, which sounded SO up my alley that I sprinted to buy a copy as soon as Samira’s panel was over! Samira was absolutely lovely, and let me take a bunch of swag along with her signature for my new book.

The festival takes place right outside the Texas Capitol — the building where the Texas legislature meets to conduct their business, which unfortunately has included passing laws to make it easier to ban books. It felt poetic in a way, to celebrate literature right on the doorstep of a government that keeps trying to ban it. On impulse, I made a funny little meme about it on Instagram and TikTok.

My Favorite Book Got a Special Edition … Is It Worth It?

I don’t make it a secret that my favorite book of all time is This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. So when the publisher announced that it was getting a special edition, I had to get my hands on it! I posted my review of the looks and quality of the new edition on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts (my review of the story inside will always be 1000/10, no notes)!

Review: Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana

I adore books with fantasy military schools and fantasy military academies. So when I found out about Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana, which has both of those things and is pitched for fans of The Will of the Many and The Poppy War, I knew I had to read it! The book came out on December 2nd, but I got to read it early because the Netgalley gods blessed me with an ebook advance copy. (I bought the print version anyway, because the first edition has some GORGEOUS deluxe features on it!)

Dawn of the Firebird is an epic dark fantasy novel about Khamilla, a former princess aspiring to get revenge on the empire that overthrew her father. To do this, she must infiltrate the empire’s academy for magic-wielding warriors and rise through the ranks to destroy them from within.

This book has intricate worldbuilding, heart-pounding action sequences, and poetic writing. A good chunk of the narrative feels like a hero origin story, but Khamilla isn’t your typical champion of goodness, and the reader must decide by the end whether it’s a heroic story or a villainous corruption arc! For more thoughts, read my review of Dawn of the Firebird on Storygraph.

Doctor Who Was Filmed In … A Museum?

One of my recent Youtube video essays followed my trip to Cardiff earlier this year to spot as many Doctor Who filming locations as I could. For Instagram and TikTok, I edited a portion of that video about the National Museum Cardiff to show just how many Doctor Who episodes were filmed there!

Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, bookish friends.

Love,

Ellie