My Thoughts: White Cat 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.

Again, I was late on the Holly Black phenomena. I had heard about her and her books but I hadn't read any of them before picking up White Cat. I wasn't all that interested in reading this story, I was not all that excited about the crime family scenario and I was confused about curse workers and such (the blurd did not grab my attention). But never the less I was at the library and decided to give this one a go. I'll be honest it took me a while to get into the story, and I didn't love it the way a lot of people did. I thought it was ooook.

I liked Cassel-I actually liked him a lot- I thought he was funny and clever (he whined a lot at times but that's understandable) I liked his friends (a lot of other readers didn't), but Daneca and Sam added to Cassel's character well. His grandfather I was not a fan of in the beginning but he grew on me, probably when he saved his grandson's life.

I did not like the family dynamics. I mean really? One brother holding Cassel down while the other kicks the crap out of him just to prove to your "boss" that you can. That annoyed me. I kept thinking that his brother's really needed to grow a pair. I almost felt sorry for Anton and the way he was losing his memory but that sympathy went out the window midway through the book. Philip. Forget it. He was a grade A jerk. He was awful to his wife, to his brothers, to everyone. He was my least favourite character by far. Their mother on the other hand was real hoot. I found her to be kind of funny, in a "did she really just do/say that?" kind of way. I look forward to reading more about her.

The White Cat-Lila- I don't think I really liked her. I don't know. It's the mob thing, needing to prove your strong enough. I don't like that kind of character. Lila was like that, it made me roll my eyes a time or two. But that's just me.

I loved Holly's writing though. The story was fun and the way she describes things is fabulous. I think even my hating Cassel's Brothers was due to her writing. All in all I plan on reading Red Glove (maybe not right away), but I am curious about what's in store for Cassel and his family, even Lila, because the end had me laughing my head off. Oh Mom, really?

Happy Reading Everyone.