White Cat by Holly Black
May. 1st, 2011 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Cassel is cursed.
No-one at home is ever going to forget that Cassel is a killer. No-one at home is ever going to forget that he isn’t a magic worker. And now he is being haunted by a white cat ...
Cassel’s family are magic workers. Ever since magic was prohibited in 1929 magic workers have been driven underground and into crime. His granddad is a black-fingered death-dealer, his mother is in prison and his brothers detest him as the only one of their family who can’t do magic. But there is a secret at the centre of Cassel’s family and he’s about to inherit it. It’s terrifying and that’s the truth.
In 1929 magic was prohibited in America. Consequently magic workers are viewed with suspicion and everyone wears gloves to minimise the physical contact that workers need to work their gifts.
Forced to hide their abilities, many workers align themselves with criminal gangs. 17 year old Cassel Sharpe’s family are no exception. His mum’s in prison for using her ability to work emotions to con wealthy men and his older brother Philip (a bone worker) is an enforcer for the Zacharov family (whom his grandfather worked for as a death dealer). Only Cassel’s brother Barron (a luck worker studying to be a lawyer) and Cassel himself are uninvolved with crime and in Cassel’s case, this is purely because he’s not a worker.
But Cassel has a dark secret. He’s a killer and his family have hidden his crime. Now a white cat is haunting his life and his dreams and as he tries to work out what’s happening, he uncovers more family secrets – secrets that threaten to blow his whole world apart ...
Holly Black’s novel, the first in a trilogy, is a wonderfully drawn alternate history fantasy set in a world where prohibition has driven magic underground.
Cassel has an excellent first person voice. Cynical but also a little lost, he’s been brought up to love the art of the con and while he’s desperate to stay at his expensive boarding school because it carries the promise of a better life, something keeps pulling him towards illicit activity. I really enjoyed the way that he describes his family and shows his relationship with them – particularly his grandfather and brother Barron.
I also enjoyed the rules that Black creates for her world. There’s an elegance to the idea of a person’s magic playing back against its owner, which is chillingly shown through the way Cassel’s grandfather loses his fingers each time he kills someone.
My one problem with the book relates to its central twist. I won’t spoil it but it did seem like a contrived way of riffing on the unreliable narrator concept and it relies heavily on exposition, which slows the pace and takes away some of the excitement.
That said I did enjoy the book, both because of its dark themes and because of a brilliant twist ending, which delivers a knock-out emotional punch. I will definitely be reading on.
The Verdict:
The first in a new urban fantasy trilogy set in an alternate world where magic is prohibited, Holly Black’s novel is a dark and compelling story that centres on a teenage boy who discovers that his own personal dark secret isn’t the only one that his family’s been keeping. My only quibble is with the central twist, which for me bordered too much on contrivance, but the ending packs a real emotional punch and I really liked Cassel’s narrative voice. I’ll definitely be reading on.
Thanks to Gollancz for the free copy of this book.
No-one at home is ever going to forget that Cassel is a killer. No-one at home is ever going to forget that he isn’t a magic worker. And now he is being haunted by a white cat ...
Cassel’s family are magic workers. Ever since magic was prohibited in 1929 magic workers have been driven underground and into crime. His granddad is a black-fingered death-dealer, his mother is in prison and his brothers detest him as the only one of their family who can’t do magic. But there is a secret at the centre of Cassel’s family and he’s about to inherit it. It’s terrifying and that’s the truth.
In 1929 magic was prohibited in America. Consequently magic workers are viewed with suspicion and everyone wears gloves to minimise the physical contact that workers need to work their gifts.
Forced to hide their abilities, many workers align themselves with criminal gangs. 17 year old Cassel Sharpe’s family are no exception. His mum’s in prison for using her ability to work emotions to con wealthy men and his older brother Philip (a bone worker) is an enforcer for the Zacharov family (whom his grandfather worked for as a death dealer). Only Cassel’s brother Barron (a luck worker studying to be a lawyer) and Cassel himself are uninvolved with crime and in Cassel’s case, this is purely because he’s not a worker.
But Cassel has a dark secret. He’s a killer and his family have hidden his crime. Now a white cat is haunting his life and his dreams and as he tries to work out what’s happening, he uncovers more family secrets – secrets that threaten to blow his whole world apart ...
Holly Black’s novel, the first in a trilogy, is a wonderfully drawn alternate history fantasy set in a world where prohibition has driven magic underground.
Cassel has an excellent first person voice. Cynical but also a little lost, he’s been brought up to love the art of the con and while he’s desperate to stay at his expensive boarding school because it carries the promise of a better life, something keeps pulling him towards illicit activity. I really enjoyed the way that he describes his family and shows his relationship with them – particularly his grandfather and brother Barron.
I also enjoyed the rules that Black creates for her world. There’s an elegance to the idea of a person’s magic playing back against its owner, which is chillingly shown through the way Cassel’s grandfather loses his fingers each time he kills someone.
My one problem with the book relates to its central twist. I won’t spoil it but it did seem like a contrived way of riffing on the unreliable narrator concept and it relies heavily on exposition, which slows the pace and takes away some of the excitement.
That said I did enjoy the book, both because of its dark themes and because of a brilliant twist ending, which delivers a knock-out emotional punch. I will definitely be reading on.
The Verdict:
The first in a new urban fantasy trilogy set in an alternate world where magic is prohibited, Holly Black’s novel is a dark and compelling story that centres on a teenage boy who discovers that his own personal dark secret isn’t the only one that his family’s been keeping. My only quibble is with the central twist, which for me bordered too much on contrivance, but the ending packs a real emotional punch and I really liked Cassel’s narrative voice. I’ll definitely be reading on.
Thanks to Gollancz for the free copy of this book.
