White Cat by Holly Black

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.

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The reason I read this was because I'd forgotten my book one day, and knew I'd get some reading done at school.  Plus, I'd been interested in this book for a while and finally got to reading it.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the idea of people able to do different things through touch, and that there was a limited variety of different powers. And that it appears to be genetic.  But what I didn't like was the fact that it was hard to follow.  I forgot the drawbacks for the powers, especially the ones that were brought up a lot.  I felt that those points need to have been brought out more, instead of random glimpses of it.

Cassel himself ... well, it was obvious after a while that he had powers too.  But it's one of those things that an author can't really hide--not unless they're some sort of master.  Black didn't do so good at the secrets; they weren't well hidden, but that may or may not have been the point.  Really, it didn't bother me.


What did bother me was his brothers.  They were so uncaring!  Black definitely made sure that I didn't like them, but I did feel sorry for Barron at the end.  I wished that Cassel would feel more toward him, considering what had happened.  


I enjoyed the relationship between Lila and Cassel.  I just wished that Cassel's relationship with his previous girlfriend had been brought out.  Give them more depth, because his previous girlfriend (I forgot her name) was mentioned, but not really used.  One of those characters that wasn't really important.


Overall, I did like the plot, and the characters, no matter how evil they were to each other.  I didn't find any really noticeable flaws (none that kept with me, at least). I'd give this 4 stars.