White Cat

White Cat
Author: Holly Black
Series: Curse Workers Series (#1)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
How Received: ARC - publisher

White Cat comes out May 4. Preorder it online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or purchase it at your local indie bookstore.

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.

Way I summarized the book to friends in four words: Cat-girl and magical mafia.

It's true.

I'm not going to say the book was bad; I enjoyed learning more about the workers and the world that Holly Black as created. The dynamics of the workers - how working is illegal, why the worker families have control over so much, the different types of working - was all really fun to read about.

Cassel is a somewhat interesting character - I couldn't really connect to him, but I liked reading about him. Cassel's grandfather and Sam were probably my favorite characters, and I liked the scenes where all of Cassel's family was together. Family dynamics are always fun.

But the world took a very long time to set up. I predicted what would happen with the white cat, with Cassel, with Sam, with the love triangle. One of the main characters was a bit of a bully who, though an interesting character, I didn't like. Characters were introduced that seemed to have no point (though they may have a point later on in the series.)

It was something I could put down easily and not think about until I had a spare few minutes, which is probably why it took so long to finish.

It was just... meh.

Also, don't forget to read who Holly dedicates the book to. It's, sadly, my favorite part of the book.

Final Rating: 6/10. Liking the world that it's set in, but not connecting to the characters and predicting the plot.
Cover Comments: LOVE that font! But what is it with making the names of authors HUGE and the titles _small?

Happy reading!