White Cat by Holly Black

May 2010, McElderry
310 Pages, Paperback
Personal Library
First in Curse Workers Series
Young Adult

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

 
Opinion:

Quick and Easy Read.  

I love trilogies – why? Because if the author has already put out it’s going to be a trilogy you know as a reader that you are going to get some closure, and hopefully pretty soon.

I love Holly Black’s writing style – it’s simple and to the point.  That’s what makes her books so enjoyable to read for me.  (I absolutely adored her Modern Faerie Tales trilogy – Tithe, Valiant & Ironside.) 

White Cat starts off with action – Cassel pretty much hanging from the roof of his school house dormitory.  How he got there – he followed a white cat.  It builds from there building a very interesting alternate world where magic is real and done by those known as curseworkers.  To work their magic on you they have to be touching you skin to skin.  Thus, everyone wears gloves constantly.  (Bet Jenny Pox wishes she lived in this world.)

I love Cas.  Even though he’s the black sheep in his family he has developed a great personality.  The take on his family is so twisted and yet fascinating  It really makes you think – who in your family could you really trust – and what sort of twisted people your loved ones might be if they had such powers and would they use them on you?

PROS:

Character building, Cas inner dialogue is great especially the one at the end! Relationships between characters were built very well.  Also, you have to love how Cas makes money. Plot twists done well enough that I didn’t figure out everything right away.

CONS:

Too convenient the way information was given about curse working.  Also, a little bit too predictable at the end. 

Rating: 

4/5

Pabkins

Countess of Crazy, Insane babbler, Giver of the Evil Eye, Walking Hazard Zone, Maker of Monsters, but above all Lover of Zombies and those things that are creepy crawly.  Step in to my library my pretties…

Categories: 4 Stars, Black, Curse Wokers, First, Pabkins, Review, Series