White Cat by Holly Black

White Cat
Author: Holly Black
The Curse Workers #1
Pages: 310
Published by Margaret K. McElderry
My Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: (From Goodreads)
  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.
Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

My Review:
What a great book! White Cat was a very intriguing and interesting read, and I loved reading about the dark twists and turns that were concerned in the world of the curse workers.

 This is my first time reading a book by Holly Black, and I have to say, I enjoyed it-I'll definitely be picking up the second book in this series, Red Glove, as well as Holly Black's other books.

Why did I love this book? Well, for a few reasons. I absolutely loved being immersed in the dark and intriguing world of the curse workers. I found it really original, and I thought it was very twisted in some ways, and dark and entertaining in others. But there was a part of me that was sometimes confused by this world. There were parts that required careful deciphering and re-reading, and there were some times where something was being discussed, and all that was going through my head was, "uhhhhh...?"

The plot was good, too. White Cat had some very awesome twists and turns that had my heart leaping. It was very original (pretty much EVERY aspect in this book was original,) and I love love loved the twists amd turns. (And that ending....holy mackerel....I did NOT see that one coming!)

The reason this book was rated four stars was one, sometimes I was confused about parts of the world that plays a key part in White Cat, and other times because certain action scenes and parts of the plot seemed to become a big muddle. There were some things that just whipped right past, and had me sitting there going "wha...wha...what?" You do eventually get what's going on, but I think it's frustrating as a reader to not get what going on. I know that there's a reason for that in some books, but White Cat just didn't seem like one of them.

This book also had some very great characters. The flashback moments with Lila were a great way to get to know her as a mysterious and complex character, and I enjoyed pretty much every characters. They're complex and layered and I feel as if there's so much more to them! (Cassel's mother was specifically an amusing character to read about.)

I found White Cat was a bit of a hard book to review. I'm sorry, my review wasn't very good. This book deserves a much better review than the one I gave it. Seriously. Please trust me-pick it up and try to prove me wrong.