Review: White Cat by Holly Black

Title: White Cat
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster)
Source: Hardback book/Goodreads.com
Rating: 3/5

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.

Review:

Holly Black's books and writing style are one of those type of things where you either love it or you hate it. I really liked her first series Modern Faerie Tales (Ironside, Tithe, and Valiant, haven't read the third one), but this series was pretty unique and differen't from any other book I've read in a long time.It took me a while to finish this book. I had to put it down a lot, but as you can see I finially finished. I really don't know what it was that made me think of it as okay. It's just one of those feelings that were neutral. I didn't hate it nor did I think it was spectacular or mind blowing it was just, oh...well that was new and interesting and cool.

It was something I'd read to tie me over whenever I'm anticipating another book or don't have anything else to read. The plot was well thought out. I loved the mafia and curse worker theme and everything. It had a LOT (notice it being capitalized) of twists and turns.You thought one thing was going to happen but then something you didn't even suspect would have happened, but it did.

The characters were decent. Cassel was just too wimpy and a push over. I really wish he could have some strength in him, muscle wise, so he could at least win one fist fight when he starts mouthing off to the wrong person. Overall the main thing that I really loved was the plot and theme. It takes a really talented author and a lot of research and etc to pull off the twist and turns, the whole mafia thing and etc which, I give her credit for but character wise...I was hoping for a little bit more from them. I might read the second book Red Glove,that I got from Galley Grab, but I'm not sure yet, even though it looks really intriguing. I Guess I will just have to wait and see.