White Cat
White Cat (Curse Workers #1)by Holly Black
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. (goodreads.com)
I was pleasantly surprised to come home to a parcel on my doorstep from Simon & Schuster Canada last week and this book was one of the 4 books I received for review. I had heard a lot of excitement in the YA book blog world about this book and so it was the first one I chose to read once I had finished the book I was currently reading. I knew I hadn't really been all that keen on the summary of the story so it wasn't something I was going to pick up while it was in hard cover, but luckily S&S Canada helped me out with that.I truly enjoy Holly Black's writing. I adored The Spiderwick Chronicles (the BOOK and not the movie) and I enjoyed most of the Modern Faerie Tales books (although I do NOT like the new covers that have just been released. Do not like them at all!) and although I was slightly curious about all the chatter about the book I wasn't sold on the idea of it.I'll be honest, I didn't love this book. I didn't quite hate it either. I think it's more of an apathy towards it. It took me a good half of the book to really sort of have any interest in the main character Cassel and figure out what the heck was going on.I found the book well-written but I didn't connect with the plot or the characters. Not for any other reason other than this just wasn't my cup of tea. I did love that it was different than all other paranormal/urban fantasy out there. There were no vampires, werewolves, faeries. These were spell workers and they gave off this gypsy sort of feel about them. I liked that aspect of it, sadly I didn't much care for the actual story.That being said, I liked the end of the book. The final quarter you might say. I like the way the action built up and came to a head. Maybe if the rest of the book had been more like that I would have felt differently? It could also have been that I don't normally like books with male protagonists. I identify better with female ones for obvious reasons. I have always been like that, even as a little toddler who didn't want "boy books" to read. (I wasn't all princesses either mind you, I liked the tomboy girls).White Cat was a fast read. I started it in the morning and it was done before I was even 20 minutes into the 2 hour train ride home from a weekend visit. I don't know how the book will be received. On one hand it's original and that makes it exciting, on the other hand it seems to lack something, I am not sure what, but something. I would probably read the second book just to see where the story goes from here, just from sheer curiosity, but I don't know if I would continue with the series if that second book didn't rock my world.I'd like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the opportunity to review this book, I am only sorry that I didn't love it as much as I would have liked to.