 |
| ★★★★✰ |
Synopsis: Cassel comes from a shady, magical family of con artists and grifters. He doesn't fit in at home or at school, so he's used to feeling like an outsider. He's also used to feeling guilty; he killed his best friend, Lila, years ago. But when Cassel begins to have strange dreams about a white cat, and people around him are losing their memories, he starts to wonder what really happened to Lila. In his search for answers, he discovers a wicked plot for power that seems certain to succeed. But Cassel has other ideas and a plan to con the conmen.
***
Review: For many years I was not a fan of Holly Black - her Modern Faerie Tale series is still bad by just about every standard I have. That said, I loved the second book in that series - Valiant, despite not being well-written. There was just something gritty and different about it. And that is what compelled me to pick up White Cat, after seeing so many good reviews of it. And honestly, it's great. Everything that I loved about Valiant is still sufficiently present in her writing style to identify this novel as being by Holly Black, but the writing has come on in leaps and bounds; is infinitely more accomplished and polished in every way.
Mafia style criminal-underbellies of any world are generally not my thing in fiction, so I will admit that affected my rating. However, the fact that it manages to pull an otherwise-four-star rating out of the bag speaks volumes. The novel opens with quite a thrilling, mysterious scene in which the main character has no idea how he has wound up in a precarious situation. This sets the tone for the rest of a story gradually unravelled by an unreliable narrator trying to piece together the facts of his own past, and the motives of his criminal Curse Worker family. Cassel, I found, was a likeable main character. Perhaps not the brightest star in the sky, but a good kid. The secondary characters could have done with a bit more development, but at least none of them grated like in Black's other work.
The fantasy side of this novel is fantastic. The right amount of world-building, the right amount of complexity to how magic works and interacts with the world, how it is utilized and responded to by the populations who possess it, and those who do not. I would like to see more politics regarding that last past arise in later installments of the series (which I will definitely be reading), because I found that underdeveloped aspect to be one of the most potentially interesting. As for the plot - exciting and generally well-paced; while I was a couple of steps ahead of Cassel for most of the book, there were quite a few twists I didn't see coming. A worthwhile read.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment