Book Review: White Cat by Holly Black

White Cat by Holly Black

Release Date: May 4, 2010

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry

4 stars

Summary from Holly’s website:

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.

You can read an excerpt here!

Also be sure to check out the Curse Workers website.

My Thoughts:

I was originally drawn to White Cat for two main reasons. Reason #1 – I love the writing style of Holly Black. I was a huge fan of her dark fey works and her short stories. When I heard that she was creating a new series I knew I had to read it. Reason #2 – I liked the concept of the series. As someone with a history degree I love books and series that take real historic events and add a supernatural twist. The Curse Workers series revolves around people who can work others with magic for both positive and negative reasons. Curse workers vary in their abilities. Some focus on working emotions while others dwell in physical curses. There are some curse workers who even deal in death magic. But most powerful of all are the transformation workers who can turn a human into another form. Few transformation workers exist, but they are the strongest of all workers and therefore are sought after by many so their gifts can be exploited.

Holly Black took the world of prohibition and gangsters and added a modern spin. Workers’ curses are illegal in the society she has created and as such their work must be done in secret. Just as with prohibition, underground crime begins to flourish and crime families fight over having the best workers in their arsenal. Cassel Sharpe comes from a family of workers who has been at the beck and call of the powerful Zacharov crime family, but he is not a worker. He watches with envy as his brothers, parents, and grandfather work their curses on others. Deep down inside he wishes that he could be just like them, but what price would be willing to pay to enter the life of a curse worker?

Cassel’s entire world changes the night he first sees the white cat in his dreams. The cat steals Cassel’s tongue and runs with it onto the roof of his posh boarding school. After ending up on the roof for the entire school to see Cassel must leave his education and spend time with his family until he can prove that he is healthy and not a danger to himself. The time he spends with his brothers and grandfather will open his eyes to a world he never knew existed where life is nothing like it appears. Cassel must learn how to pull off the ultimate con in order to steal back his own life.

Black weaves an intricate tale of murder, mystery, and deceit that keeps you guessing until the last sentence. She does a beautiful job of writing the voice of a male narrator. Finding books to recommend to male teenagers can often be a daunting task. However, I think White Cat would make even the most reluctant reader take notice.