“** spoiler alert ** It took a long while for me (longer compared to other books), as illustrated by my status messages while reading, to get invested in "White Cat" despite totally loving the premise of the book. It's not so much the protagonist, Cassel Sharp, or what happens to him (the story opens with him almost dying because he sleepwalked and ended up on the roof; that should get anyone's attention!) but more of how things were presented, and how Holly Black wrote them.
It took about half the book to really get a picture of what the Curse Workers are, what they do, what their place is in society, and how the Mafia-like families controlling the Workers work (Haha, accidental pun! Let's pretend it was intended.) But by the time the book ended, I don't believe I've really fully grasped the details of the world and the intricacies of Cassel's character.
Cassel's POV is part of the problem here, I think. Don't get me wrong, it's refreshing to read a YA book from a male POV. He starts out not knowing about his power--a self-proclaimed outsider in the Worker world--though he knows enough to describe the politics and how the Magic works. In theory, his angst about not having a power, and his account of the weird things that are suddenly happening to him should have been as much of a draw as his account of what he can do with his power had he known he had it. But all I got in the first few chapters was an account of his suspension from school, the betting pool he runs under the school admin's radar, his unease about staying with his brother Philip, his plans for getting unsuspended, and pages about him cleaning his parents' home in the company of his rather grumpy grandfather. Granted, that was a lot of story right there, but Black's writing style didn't really reveal much of Cassel's personality to me, or why he felt the way he did for his family members or himself. And, later, when I found out his memories were wiped repeatedly, he became an unreliable narrator, and I had to work hard to understand who the real Cassel was. Our memories and experiences shape our personalities, and if none of that was real for Cassel even if he believed they were, then what can I believe? Normally the author's voice would tell us, but I couldn't hear Black loud enough in this one.
The basic plot was very interesting and it was definitely original. Once again, in theory, this should have made for an action-packed insert-favorite-magic-based-story-here meets The Godfather thriller, but "White Cat" doesn't quite soar to those heights. The action truly picks up only in the last half of the book, and even then, the climactic set piece of a con became a jumbled box of tricks; it was as if the characters were in a contest for who can pull off the most amazing con. (I predicted most of the outcome several pages back, so maybe it's a toss-up for who will win that contest... no wait, I vote for Shandra, Cassel's mom!)
I hope that "Red Glove" would be better in terms of Cassel's characterization and how Black writes the action. Now that Cassel is aware of his powers, there should be more room to expand on the World and his character.”
meann wrote this review Monday, February 7, 2011.
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