This story has the feeling of an old morality tale, straight out of Aesop's fables. It is set in Bardugo's fantasy world built for her Grisha novels, but I haven't read any of these and you don't need to know them to enjoy this story. It's the tale of Koja, the scrawny fox whose cleverness and quick tongue have always kept him safe from harm. He's talked his way out of traps and become famous among the other animals of the forest, but this master trickster has one fatal flaw. For the trickster can be tricked, and cleverness is only useful as long as we don't allow it to blind us. Setting the scene amid snow, dark forests and Russian-tinted names, Bardugo warns us not to judge by appearances.

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Koja was born an ugly runt of a fox litter, but he is so clever that he manages to escape many deaths. But then the deadliest hunter in Ravka comes to his forest, and all his wits may not be enough to save him. ( )

The Too-Clever Fox is a gruesome story with a fablelike quality that fools the readers into thinking that they know what is going on and what is going to happen. It is a masterfully and vividly written, and perfectly enjoyable little tale.

Leigh Bardugo is one of those storytellers who can conjure up an entire sophisticated world in a couple of pages - it is a fascinating capability few authors manage to achieve. ( )

This is a short story/small novella set in the Grisha world. Almost half of this novella is a preview of the third book in the Grisha series (which I read quite a while ago). I have really been enjoying the 0.5 books in this series. This novella was a decent read and was basically a folk tale from that world. The big twist in the story was very predictable which was the biggest disappointment to this tale.

In the woods there lives a very clever, but very ugly, fox. He is known for escaping a number of dire situations. When large animals start disappearing from the forest the other animals come to him for help; can he solve the mystery of the disappearing animals? When he finds out that a notorious hunter has moved into the area he tries to befriend the hunter’s sister in an effort to get rid of the hunter for good.

This was a well written folktale and I enjoyed it. I loved the irony of the tale and enjoyed the description throughout.

The only thing I didn’t really like was how predictable the major twist in the folktale was. I saw it coming from a mile away and was somewhat disappointed that I was right. This was also very very short; half of the ebook was a preview of book 3 in the Grisha series.

The above being said this was a very well done folktale with some magic in it. I enjoyed the fairy-tale like feel of the story.

Overall this was a well done folktale set in the Grisha world. I actually liked Bardugo’s Witch of Duva short story a lot better, but this one was okay. I would recommend to those who are reading the Grisha series and enjoy ironic fairytales and/or folktales. ( )

Koja the fox was born ugly. His mother almost ate him right after birth to rid the world of him. The clever little fox talked his way out of it.


Beware of thinking you are the most clever..it really never works out that way. ( )