White Cat by Holly Black

Title: White Cat	Loved it	Graded
Author: Holly Black
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Elements: Cons
Series: Book 1 of the Curse Workers trilogy

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.

This is my first foray into Holly Black's work and it didn't disappoint.

It starts off with Cassel standing on the ledge of a building with no idea how he got there. Intriguing start, but his name... Cassel. Tassel. Castle? I've never heard this name before, and those words kept running in my head whenever someone uses his name. Very distracting.

Also, just the title and the author's name. HAH! White Cat. Holly Black. Ahh, I'm so lame. -___-

The plot's not bad; it seems a little simplistic, but the tension, action and mystery is enough to propel the story forward. Clues were littered throughout the story, clues which I thought were blatant and repetitious. As soon as I realised that it was repeated one too many times, the magic was slightly gone and I was impatiently waiting for Cassel to just realise it.

The twists are pretty good once they happen, with a bit of plot left after the reveal. That part is always my favourite part of a book, when the author doesn't just leave us readers smack bang with the revelation and says 'Bye bye! Wait for the sequel to find out more!'. After which the sequel always seems to be disappointing. *sad face*

A con! Curses! Curse workers! And the glove factor, just truly ingenious ingredients, with great characters. I just wished more could have been done with them. Sure, the main characters are the ones that seem to have a little more life, but other than that, all of them seem to have only one purpose, one characteristic that defines them. I like the world that Black built, it's interesting and well executed. So here's to reading the sequel, and hoping that it won't disappoint.

P.S. The reason I blanked out the synopsis is because it ruined the whole book for me. I had to rewrite this review many times (Rewrite number 3, hello!) because it affected my enjoyment and experience in reading WHITE CAT.