Book Review: White Cat by Holly Black 

Hello all! So a friend of mine has recently given me a mountain of Young Adult fiction after my revelation that I consciously avoid YA fiction. Although to be fair it was not much of a revelation since my eyes usually glaze over when she tells me about the new 'big' thing in YA fiction. Its not that I hate YA fiction so much as the whole YA genre bores me to death. I find the plots predictable, the characters annoyingly immature and so I kind of just stopped reading them when I was about 16. However times change and so at the ripe old age of 21 and with some free time on my hands I have decided to jump back into the foray of YA fiction. You'll find out whether I regret this recursion below: 


The Novel: White Cat, first in the Curse Workers Series 

The Author: Holly Black 


The Cover: 

The length: 320 pages


The Genre: Fantasy, with a hint of romance. 

The Story: 

Cassel Sharpe is a seventeen year old from a family of 'workers', no, not the kind that you see on the street corner but in this fantasy world people who have magic abilities are known as 'workers'. All but itty bitty Cassel the youngest member of the Sharpe family seem to posses some kind of power, which is sad and inevitably leads to a semi- depressed, restless Catcher and the Rye, Holden-esque narrative where Sharpe feels out of place and excluded from his own family. 

Meanwhile the rest of his family use there abilities for bad: His absent mother can manipulate people by making them fall in love with her and so usually ends up in compromising situations because of it (one of them which is jail).

Not if Cassel's mother has anything to do with it...

His grandfather comes across an old mafia- type, his older brother has super strength and his other brother can alter memories- (all three of the guys in his family work for an influential crime family who use workers to do their dirty work). Thus the family of superheros is complete:

However nothing is ever that simple is it? With cool abilities come crappy responsibilities or in this case crappy 'blowbacks' which are serious repercussions to using your powers e.g. if you use your mind altering ability to alter someones memories you lose some of your memories; so you might one day end up trawling the streets not having a clue as to who you are. 

Anyway the plot centres around the boarding- school stranded Cassel and the weird dreams he has of a white cat, hence the title (but I won't spoil the significance of the cat). He also narrates the guilt he feels at killing his best friend Lila when they were 14 (there, there Cassel; I would feel guilty too). 

Theres also a kind of hierarchical structure within the story with some 'workers' abilities being more rare that others and so in turn being more sought after than others. Also like with most fantasy worlds where the people with abilities are outed to society there's a general mistrust with government seeing the workers as a threat as so there is a government vs. workers theme.                                                                                                                                             

Best bits: The Hogwarts-esque vibe you get from Cassel's boarding school and the magical element, which brings back bitter-sweet Harry Potter memories  (aaah! I miss Hogwarts days). 

• The Holden- esque narrative (Catcher and the Rye is one of my favorite books so you can imagine how much I loved the writing style).

• Cassel's childhood love and longing for Lila (sooo sweet)

• Cassel's James Dean coolness. I like when the authors portray a character as too- cool- for- school (lol forgive me for my slip back to the 90's), we get a sense that Cassel is a cool dude (forgive me once again) not from what he says and does but from how others react towards him, which is mostly with fear or respect. He's also pretty much a lone wolf throughout most of the novel which enhances his coolness vibe.

  

  James Dean looking cool and smexy

Dislikes: 

• I pieced things together a lot faster than Cassel so most chapters were spent being annoyed at Cassel's obvious stupidity. 

• The subplot, which generally consists of a boringly awkward romance between his friend's Sam and Daneca.

Overall my first foray back into YA fiction was not too bad. I wasn't blown away by "White Cat" but I did like it more than I think I would so I'm glad I gave YA fiction another chance.  

The Verdict: 7/ 10 (Lucky my friend has had the foresight to include all three of the trilogy so I will be reading the next two) Toodles. 

Worth the read: Yes