White Cat by Holly Black
7:10 PM
Title: White CatPublisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Release: May 4, 2010
Pages: 310
Series: Curse Workers
Synopsis:
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.
Review:
I ordered White Cat several days ago for the simple reason that I had seen so many great reviews and I wanted to check it out for myself. Once I did, I was hooked. Beware, there are some spoilers below.
The cover of the copy of White Cat that I read is the paperback edition. The paperback is different than the hardcover as the font changed, they took out the series name, and the smoke that went over the cover model's face before, as you can see to the side. Personally, I like the new cover better, though both are great. Although, I really love those posters someone made that were in the book (as you can see one of them below).The characters of White Cat were very interesting (in a good way!). I adored Cassel and how great at conning people he was and how he used it to try and impress his family of curse workers because he believes himself not to be one. Then there's Sam, Cassel's roommate who is faithful to the end. And then there's Cassel's two brothers Barron and Philip who seem to just be ordinary brothers, though secretly they have been using Cassel for their own agenda. The cast of characters was very fun and complex at the same time.
The setting of White Cat was so unique to fit the characters and their curse working. In White Cat, everyone is forced to wear gloves to prevent cursing through touch, which happens to be the only way to curse someone. Now, not everyone is a curse worker, but those who are try and stay in the dark as they are persecuted for being different and being looked upon as dangerous.
OK, the writing. First off, I would just like to point out that it's not very often that I find, or read, a book written in a male perspective that I enjoy. I can happily say that White Cat was an exception to my rule, it also totally changed my view on male perspective books. I loved how fast paced this book was and how Holly had a way of intertwining the details from the past and of the slightly changed world that you need to know for the current storyline so the book keeps moving at a good pace right from the beginning. I can't imagine how much hard work Holly must have put into White Cat to make all the different cons and just to build this amazing world that the book is set in. It's so intricately woven that didn't know what was going to happen until it hit, and trying to imagine how much thought had to go into writing White Cat is just brain numbing. White Cat was a great con story that took me on a roller coaster ride of a time. Overall, I would give White Cat a 5/5 for being so darn awesome and making me want to run out to the store to get all of Holly Black's other books.
3 comments
I haven't heard of this book! I may have to check it out.
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Mist
I love this book and I love your review for this book! Y
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! I love getting feedback or just say Hi!