Review: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

You're probably wondering why I haven't been posting lately. One word: swim season. Okay, that's two words. But when you're suffocating from a lack of sleep and lack of oxygen, in my case, it's hard to get enough time to actually finish a book. As always, you can subscribe to my Goodreads account via the link in the sidebar because I'm better at updating that account than this. Plus, I have to delete spoiler tags from my original reviews to post them on Blogger, so you get that extra little something if you read these on my Goodreads. Memes will start again next week when I get the hang of my new schedule. 

Title: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

Author: Lish McBride

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he’s doing all right—until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak. 

Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he’s a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . or else.  

With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin?

Review:

It took me a while to actually start this book, but once I started, I couldn't stop (hence, why this review is being written at 1:21 am). I can sum up the story in one sentence: A fun paranormal romp that sacrifices realism for the sake of awesomeness.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer proved to me that it's possible to have a bucketload of supporting characters and balance all of them in a somewhat satisfying way. I thought at first that McBride was overshooting when the initial 4 character cast was added upon with 2 bad guys, 1 love interest + family, and a convoluted family backstory. Some might even argue that she did indeed overestimate her abilities. I, however, can't see it that way. I thought that the supporting characters all got their own development or at least hinted to a new story line in the sequels. Honestly, this was the only time where I could actually stand the "average human sidekick" trope; Ramon is possibly my favorite sidekick in a PNR that I've read recently.

Sam could've turned out to be a generic protagonist. McBride certainly didn't do any favors by giving him the "my mother didn't tell me about my true paranormal powers and now it turns out I'm uber powerful" trope. Yet all I can say is that Sam is certainly a character I could root for. He's not the smartest guy when it comes to school, but he is rational and likeable. He thinks like a normal human being shoved into a ridiculous situation. He's not perfect but he doesn't pretend to be. I actually think he is the most believable out of all the characters (although realism on a plot level is...sketchy). However, I don't think that I could've read a whole book about Sam. It helped immensely that McBride actually changed the POV each chapter, alternating between Sam's first person POV and supporting character-centric third person POV. The way this book was formatted helped flesh out each facet of the story without overwhelming me with too-much Sam or too-much Ramon.

I have a lot of other minor good things to say about Hold Me Closer, Necromancer like the world-building and action, but I took off a star because the realism in some aspects was really lacking.  On the other hand, in McBride's defense, I probably would have made the same move she did. Sometimes, readers just like to get to the fun stuff, and if that means skimping on the realism sometimes, so be it.

I think this is a pretty fun book to get a hold of. I'd recommend it if not just for having a nice way to pass the time.

Review: Shattered Souls

Title: Shattered Souls

Author: Mary Lindsey

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Part of a Series?: Standalone

Goodreads Summary:

 Lenzi hears voices and has visions - gravestones, floods, a boy with steel gray eyes. Her boyfriend, Zak, can't help, and everything keeps getting louder and more intense. Then Lenzi meets Alden, the boy from her dreams, who reveals that she's a reincarnated Speaker - someone who can talk to and help lost souls - and that he has been her Protector for centuries.

Now Lenzi must choose between her life with Zak and the life she is destined to lead with Alden. But time is running out: a malevolent spirit is out to destroy Lenzi, and he will kill her if she doesn't make a decision soon.

Review:

2.5 stars

This book was a pain to finish. It took me twice as long to read, and I had to pick up different books to keep myself occupied. The main thing I think was bad about this book was that Mary Lindsey was really inconsistent with the quality of her plot. She shoved all of the boring stuff into the first 75% of the book, leaving only a few chapters for the exciting action and mystery.

I was totally overwhelmed with the sheer number of clichés that riddled this book. Had it not been for the predictability, I think Shattered Souls would've been fairly interesting. It had reincarnation, ghosts, exorcisms, and the sweet smell of faux-bureaucracy. But we also got a whole lot of messy love triangles, stupid protagonist decisions, and frustrating "I love you but can't be with you" speeches. 

Lenzi is awfully difficult to support. She is weak, whiney, and overall a pain to read about, especially in the first half of the book where she alternates between rejecting Alden's help with her ghost problem and playing 20 questions with him even when they're on a time crunch. Her ongoing identity crisis didn't help either. Furthermore, she falls into the "innocent seductress" stereotype too easily. She leads on Zak, her current boyfriend, even though she clearly loves Alden from day 1. Can I just tell all YA female protagonists with love triangle issues that CHEATING IS CHEATING, NO EXCEPTIONS. If you have a boyfriend but like someone else, break up with the boyfriend before you kiss the other guy. Because if you kiss that other guy before breaking up with said boyfriend, you are a CHEATER and deserve no sympathy if said boyfriend tries to kill you in a fit of drunken stupidity.

The plot is a little disjointed and uneven. I can sort of understand the amount of infodumping in this book. There is a lot of backstory that we need to know. However, told through Alden in monologues that compose several pages, the flood of new information made me feel overwhelmed and frustrated at the stagnation of the story's real plot! The minor restitutions scattered around the chapters are sort of satisfying (and really, really interesting. no sarcasm there), but they only served to increase my impatience. When we finally get to the Big Baddy of the book, the final conclusion to the battle left me wanting more. Even Lenzi comments on how fast everything was going; literally, we meet, learn about, and beat the Big Baddy all in the span of half a day. 

Overall, I thought this book had potential. Unfortunately, I just got tired of wading through the clichés in search of a good story.

Review: Angelfall

Title: Angelfall

Author: Susan Ee

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Review:

I'm fighting my snooty, good-books-cost-more-than-99-cents-on-Amazon gag reflex here when I'm giving this book 5 (technically, 4.5 but it's still a MUST READ book) stars. There are certain issues I could point out about Angelfall, but I would much rather relish the great quality of the first book I've ever read that lives up to the epic potential of angels.

I wouldn't say that this book currently fills the shoes left by The Hunger Games, but Ee's story has the potential. I'll admit that the first couple of chapters were a little hard to get through because 1) I had to get over my previously mentioned prejudice against the "bargain books" of Amazon and 2) the start of the book was pretty formulaic: Penryn's sister is kidnapped, and in the process, Penryn joins up with the beautiful angel Raffe (who obviously is going to be the main love interest). But I had to eat my words--or thoughts--because the book continued to kick up the pace from that point on. I read past midnight with a huge migraine just to finish this book, showing how addictive Angelfall is once it gets its momentum.

The characters aren't just interesting -- they're believable. Penryn and Raffe, my favorite agnostic angel, are really realistic; in other words, they are not the Mary Sue byproduct of the YA author syndrome to create the perfect protagonists. Before writing this review, I read some other ones on Goodreads, and they all commented on the dialogue. Obviously, there is that spark of wit and sarcasm we all like to read, but I actually loved the moments when Penryn failed to come up with good comebacks. I mean, realistically, don't you ever have those moments when you finish the argument, and minutes later, you come up with some witty retort that you wish  you could've used?

Another point I really liked is the angel plot line. I'm not religious so I can't say whether the mythology is accurate or not, but I think everything was presented in a way that was believable. My debate coach used to say that, as long as you spoke with confidence, you could lie as much as you want and get away with it. Let's not get into the touchy morals of that statement, but the gist pretty much fits the book's angel premise. Ee is unabashedly confident with describing her "antagonists." I use quotation marks because it seems like there is a whole new level to them than just the blackhearted beasts that destroyed the world. I'd personally like to know more about what happened when Raffe went to get his wings reattached.

Gah, there is just so much to talk about for Angelfall. And can I say, this is only the first in the series! The last third presented so many questions and not enough answers. And the ending! PLEASE, I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! 

--

Follow me:

Goodreads

Twitter

Review: Whisper

Title: Whisper

Author: Phoebe Kitanidis

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

I’d love a cup of coffee. I wish she knew how pretty she was. I wish I could drop this kid in the dryer sometimes. I just want her to be happy. I hope she didn’t find out what Ben said about her. I wish I knew how many calories were in a bite of muffin… 

Joy is used to hearing Whispers. She’s used to walking down the street and instantly knowing people’s deepest, darkest desires. She uses this talent for good, to make people happy and give them what they want. But for her older sister, Jessica, the family gift is a curse, and she uses it to make people’s lives—especially Joy’s—miserable. Still, when Joy Hears a frightening whisper from Jessica's own mind, she knows she has to save her sister, even if it means deserting her friends, stealing a car and running away with a boy she barely knows—a boy who may have a dark secret of his own.

Review:

So what did I like from this book? 

I thought the concept of Whispers and Waves was fun. It wasn't very unique, maybe, but you can't really squeeze that much more out of the mind reading lemon these days. In a way, Kitanidis featured a different sort of mind reading that was only limited to desires. I had no idea a person wished for something so much. I'll have to be more aware more often of what I subconsciously think about people. 

Whispers actually focused a lot more on Joy and Icka's sisterhood. That was a new and refreshing twist. I thought the book would be more suspense-driven, especially looking at the Goodreads summary. But I actually found the flashback moments into the sisters' past and the development of their present day relationship to be poignant and well-developed. I can only hope for more Joy-Icka bonding in later installments. 

What did I think could definitely use some improvements for the next book?

Joy, Joy, Joy. I had a tremendous amount of difficulty relating to her. She is so frustratingly naive, as her sister pointed out. While a lot of people would find Icka's (note: Icka is the saddest nickname to give a person...ever) criticism insensitive and hateful, I actually agreed with the eldest Stefani sister. Joy can be so blind and shallow--she takes all her information "prechewed" from her Mom and her friends. For a fifteen-year-old, Joy is heavily dependent on those around her. To be honest, the only way to describe her initial personality is ghostly; she has no substance of her own but is only defined by those she interacts with. Overall, Whisper, for better or for worse, tilted away from urban fantasy mystery and more towards chicklitty melodrama. And chicklits all deal in the minutiae of teenage woes and high school drama. 

Joy's "friends" with the exception of Parker are all plastic and fake. While I can sort of relate with Joy in not seeing how badly she fits in with her friends (for me, it's 2nd grade all over again...), I can't really say Joy did anything to stand out from being the follower. Joy gets really pissy right about when her Hearing starts improving and she realizes her BFFs think she's a sidekick. But honestly, for 2/3 of the book, Joy only focuses on pleasing everyone else but never herself. Whether it's becoming president of Parker's recycling club or trying to appease both grandparents during the most awkward family brunch in history, Joy spends every hour of her life Hearing the Whispers in order to keep everyone satisfied. Disappointing someone ruins her entire day. Moreover, it completely blindsides Joy when her father tells her that he only wants her to be happy. At that moment, I was thinking, Joy, you cannot please everyone! And are you really surprised that your dad is selfless? Are you so surprised that someone actually doesn't want something from you? Try to get to know the man before you run off to your mom because your father is way more understanding than you think. 

So...I did have a few more minor qualms, but I mainly just wished Joy wasn't so bland. She sort of ruined the story for me, but I'll still read whatever sequel is next.

Full Series Review for the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews

Alright, I had a long time to ruminate about this book (since I miscalculated and only brought along one book on vacation) and the series in general.


To keep this short and simple, the series itself was cute but nothing special. There were moments that I wanted to go "Awww!" and moments where I got angry and wanted to scream some sense into the characters. There were moments were I was surprised at how blindsided I was to what just happened (either that was good because I didn't expect the development or bad because there was no hint whatsoever to go off of beforehand) and moments where I wished the revelation had come ten chapters earlier because that's where I first figured out the plot "twist."


I think the Kate Daniels series has a lot of promise, but it keeps teasing us to the real problem: Roland. So far, Kate's big bad daddy hasn't made an appearance except by name. Meanwhile, I felt like the series has pandered to the fangirls with 5 very episodic entries. Don't get me wrong. I like being a fangirl as much as the next self-indulgent reader does. But I had the chance to reread Magic Slays and its prequels several times the last week because I had no other books left. I found myself comparing the books to my favorite television series. I enjoy the breaks in the main plot to dip my toes into the character development and light action and adventure, but the reason I keep returning to watch the newest episode is to figure out what is the next clue to the overall grand scheme of things (because you know there has to be one, right?).


The character development is alright. Curran will never really be too memorable for me since I read his carbon copy in almost EVERY other adult PNR I've read this year (*cough* Barrons *cough*), but there are still moments between him and Kate that are cute enough for me to enjoy. But he kind of lost his edge in Magic Slays, which now makes him slightly less memorable than he already was...and Kate, well...she's a pretty straightforward protagonist. I don't have too much to say about her because she doesn't break any new boundaries. I found that she spends a lot of time charging headlong into dangerous situations, only to spend the next chapter getting healed, and then the next chapter back in the field because she has her daddy's magic blood to revive her. It got really repetitive. The hospital scenes really appeared to be fanservice devices for Andrews to appeal to the readers who want more Curran-Kate moments.


So I'll stick with the series for now because I want to read the fated showdown between Kate and Roland. But...meh. I need more substance!!!

First half of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews

 Book Titles: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, and Magic Strikes

Author: Ilona Andrews

*Note: These are the first three books of the series

Review:
In my defense, I like paranormal romance. Criticize as much as you want. I could probably pick several books off your books list and laugh at your tastes. So this review is coming from someone who likes paranormal romance. She likes good PNR, and she likes it done well. But she doesn't automatically jump on the "Ew slut porn with magic books" bandwagon.

So I actually sort of enjoyed the first half of the Kate Daniels series. What did I like?

• The badass, eponymous protagonist, Kate Daniels. She has a wicked magical sword that slices through undead vampires like they're melted butter, and she has an equally impressive arsenal of snappy retorts. She greets the Beast Lord with "Here, kitty, kitty."
• The steam is so HOT. I like sex scenes, okay? Geez. I admit it. But can you believe that in these first books, there was NO SEX AT ALL! That's got to break some unwritten adult PNR rule that God created to satisfy all the horny readers all the time. Kate obviously is meant to get with Curran, the sexy Beast Lord. And yes, they have some tense, chemically charged moments. Yet, there was no doing the deed. Thank God! I've gotten really tired of the female protagonists having some serious libido touch.
• The last scene in the third book says it all. What a LOL moment.

What I don't really like about the series:

• The first book is typical for a PNR: infodumps, internal monologues, and sarcasm. 
• Sometimes, the plot gets forced. I feel like Andrews sometimes just adds stuff for the sake of keeping the momentum going. Mystery is not the best point to this series; the "subtle" clues sort of hit you in the back of your head. 
• Overall, there just wasn't much that really separated the first half of the series from any of the other PNR series I've read. It had some memorable moments, but for the most part, it was fairly average. 

Review: Red Glove

Title: Red Glove

Author: Holly Black

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Part of a Series?: Second in series; Click here for first review

 

Goodreads Summary:

Curses and cons. Magic and the mob. In Cassel Sharpe's world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth—he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything—or anyone—into something else. 

That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she's human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila's been cursed to love him, a little gift from his emotion worker mom. And if Lila's love is as phony as Cassel's made-up memories, then he can't believe anything she says or does. 

When Cassel's oldest brother is murdered, the Feds recruit Cassel to help make sense of the only clue—crime-scene images of a woman in red gloves. But the mob is after Cassel too—they know how valuable he could be to them. Cassel is going to have to stay one step ahead of both sides just to survive. But where can he turn when he can't trust anyone—least of all, himself? 

Love is a curse and the con is the only answer in a game too dangerous to lose.

 

Review:

Unfortunately, Red Glove was a definite disappointment. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to the standards I had for the series after White Cat. The first book had drama, mystery, suspense, and intrigue, all with a believable male protagonist. Yet all of those great aspects seemed diminished in this book. 

First off, I thought the book lacked a certain...pop? It wasn't boring, but the mystery wasn't nearly as interesting as the last book's backstabbing who's-who's-ally drama. Cassel spends the entire book ditching school to go on little random outings, partly because he's a big sufferer of senioritis and partly because the FBI has him working to find his brother's murderer. The identity of said murderer wasn't really all that important though. When the big reveal happens, Black literally spends a few pages on the confrontation scene. It was not the climax I expected it to be. In general, the main story was heavily diluted so Black could spend more unnecessary pages on Cassel's internal conflict. 

Why did Black spend more time on Cassel's mental monologues? I liked how White Cat portrayed a male protagonist who didn't spend so much time in thought. Furthermore, I was pretty ambivalent about Cassel's new no-care attitude about school, family, and life in general. He lied plenty of times in the first book, but now Cassel just seemed to lie because the truth was too much of a hassle. It was frustrating, and it made it hard for me to care for him. He treated in his life like it was a con, including his relationship with Lila. I could understand him for wanting to distance himself while Lila was cursed. But he also used Lila for his own gains, and I'm glad it all backfired in his face in the end. 

The good thing about Red Glove is that it contained more of the characters I wanted to read about: Sam, Daneca, and Cassel's mother. They were secondary characters that really got a lot more description instead of remaining 2D filler characters. I was especially happy with the amount of time we got to read about Cassel's mother. She's a double-edged sword in Cassel's life. Because she's a emotion worker, her blowback makes her emotionally unstable. She could be the maternal mommy and the hysterical ex-con all on one page, and I found myself enjoying every second she was featured.

--

Follow Me:

Goodreads

Twitter 

Review: Angel Evolution (sorry this is a little late)

Title: Angel Evolution

Author: David Estes

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

 Angel Evolution- the first book in the young adult fantasy trilogy: The Evolution Trilogy... When Taylor meets Gabriel at college, she is in awe of the subtle glow that surrounds him. No one else, not even her best friend, seems to notice. Something about him scares her. Is all as it appears? While Taylor struggles for answers, she finds herself in the middle of a century old war centered on one miraculous revelation: evolution.

Review:

Thanks goes out to David Estes for letting me have a free ebook copy of his book to review. :) 

2.5 stars 

The last self-pubbed book I read was Betrayal by Mayandree Michel. Long story short, it sucked. Thankfully, Angel Evolution was better than I expected coming away from my prior experience with self-pubs; however, there were a lot of things that could have been improved.

The best way I can describe the faults of Angel Evolution is that the story itself reads a lot like fanfiction. Now before you make any judgments about this statement, consider this: fanfiction.nethas thousands and thousands of stories in its catalogue, with more submitted every day. Obviously, there is something addictive about fanfiction, not just because it spins a take on your favorite stories but also because its just interesting. There are some really good undiscovered writers out there hiding behind online pen names. However, generally, the stories online have a relative entertainment value but, if bound into a hardcover and put into a bookstore, wouldn't cut it among professionally published works.  

The same goes for Estes and Angel Evolution. There is a certain amount of mystery and drama that I enjoyed to the plot, but overall, the story read like a fanfiction. There were a lot of "show don't tell" violations in the form of infodumps and internal expositions. I thought that the book lacked a naturalness that is usually found in published books. There were a lot of strange phrases and stiff, awkward dialogues (note: I personally like contractions. Even in non-dialogue sentences, they make the narration smoother) that don't match up with my idea of a group of laid back college folk. Events also happened way to quickly. Estes uses a lot of jumps in narration and time, which really cut into our ability to relate fully to a character. The two month jump in the middle of Taylor and Gabriel's relationship startled me, and as a result, I was unable to feel the chemistry between the two--all of the sudden, they went from the new couple stage to the able-to-say-I-love-you stage. I wished I could have experienced the bonding phase between the protagonists. It would've really helped me relate to the otherwise unrelatable protagonists.

I do not profess to know anything about the jobs of professional book editors and publishers, but they're paid to fix these kinds of errors. Again, I can't blame this book or Estes himself for self-pubbing (since this is a good way to just get your work out to the public), but a lot of the faults to this book simply stem from a lack of experience reviewing the initial drafts.

Not everything about this book was bad. I thought that there was something enticing about the angel-demon war. Estes put his own unique spin on the two races, and I really want to know more about the backstory behind the conflict and those involved. What was interesting to me was that neither side really seemed to be truly evil. As a demon, Chris definitely made a good case for being the good guy. But then again, Gabriel and his fellow angels had this light-hearted nature to them. I think Estes did a great job at blurring the lines between the friends and enemies. 

Review: A Need So Beautiful

Title: A Need So Beautiful

Author: Suzanne Young

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

 We all want to be remembered. Charlotte's destiny is to be Forgotten... 

Charlotte’s best friend thinks Charlotte might be psychic. Her boyfriend thinks she’s cheating on him. But Charlotte knows what’s really wrong: She is one of the Forgotten, a kind of angel on earth, who feels the Need—a powerful, uncontrollable draw to help someone, usually a stranger. 

But Charlotte never wanted this responsibility. What she wants is to help her best friend, whose life is spiraling out of control. She wants to lie in her boyfriend's arms forever. But as the Need grows stronger, it begins to take a dangerous toll on Charlotte. And who she was, is, and will become--her mark on this earth, her very existence--is in jeopardy of disappearing completely. 

Charlotte will be forced to choose: Should she embrace her fate as a Forgotten, a fate that promises to rip her from the lives of those she loves forever? Or is she willing to fight against her destiny--no matter how dark the consequences.

Review:
Frankly, this book was pretty boring. It didn't do anything unpredictable, so each plot "twist" made me think, Great...sooo...when's dinner? The only thing that really kept me reading was the question of if Charlotte would give into being a Forgotten or end up living immortally on Earth like Onika (Okina? How's it spelled? I'm too lazy to look it up). 

The book is well-written, and I think the problem is that the writing was wasted on a pretty standard plot line. I can tell Young really put some thought into her concepts about the Forgotten and the Seers and the Shadows, but the story line was very disjointed. We have the Sarah-and-her-daddy-issues plot, the Harlin-the-boyfriend plot, the Charlotte's-glowing-skin plot, and finally the Monroe-Onika-Seer-Charlotte plot. There are a lot of components to A Need So Beautiful, but I don't think Young was able to fluidly interconnect the pieces. Also, she just left us hanging on the most important bits. The evil Shadows that Monroe keeps mentioning--they don't play any part in the plot other than acting as the figurative scapegoats for Charlotte's problems. 

Furthermore, everything was just...so black and white. Charlotte and co. don't carry the necessary depth to pull off a story that is measured on how connected the readers get with the characters. This book is essentially posing the question, "If you were destined to be forgotten by your loved ones, what would you do?" And when Charlotte has to come to terms with her Forgotten status, it's pretty important that we feel the torment and indecision alongside her. But I didn't really feel like Young managed to pull off the poignancy very well. It would've helped if the characters were fleshed out more. Charlotte whined the entire book (We get it. You don't want to be a Forgotten. Now, try to stop crying, for the love of God), so we didn't get to see her express much range of emotion. This problem was further worsened by the secondary characters, Sarah and Harlin. Sarah fell right into the snobby, rich girl stereotype, and Harlin did little to express any emotion that contradicted his sensitive, tormented persona. 

If anything saved this book, it was the ending. The last scene was rather tough to get through, primarily because I knew the story was coming to an end. The last chapter was the climactic "choose good or evil" scene for Charlotte, and this is where Young's writing really shone for me. Also, the end was a semi-cliffhanger, that posed some interesting questions which, if they'd been asked and answered in the actual body of the book, could've provided some more drama and excitement to the plot...SPOILER!!!!!(e.g. Harlin's a Seer? Monroe knew this? What's with the "After" section?).

Overall, the book was kind of boring. But I'm going to read the sequel because the last chapter hinted at an intricate story only skimmed upon in this book.

Review: White Cat

Title: White Cat

Author: Holly Black

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Part of a Series?: First in series

Goodreads Summary:

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 criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got magic, 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.
            
Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts to crumble when he finds himself 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. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to outcon the conmen.

Review:

This book made my head hurt in the best way possible. It's a con within a con (con-ception...errr...yeah...awk)! And is it possible that I could allude to Oceans Eleven twice in one week? White Cat really captures the mystery, intrigue, and last minute reveals that makes a great mystery book great. 

First of all, I really like it when authors present the fantasy/paranormal elements as realities rather than something mythological and made up. However, I feel like Black probably could've found a more unique way to world build the concept of curse working. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of curses. But I've read a fair share of AU-esque urban fantasy that utilizes mafia elements. IMO, the crime family foundation feels like a crutch that gives an unnecessary feeling of cliché to the whole book. But I do like the world building in general. Interestingly, good-hearted people can curse people; it's not just the bad guys who curse you with death.

The best part about this book are the characters. Cassel is a refreshing narrator. He's so thankfully flawed and ungirly. Most guy protagonists I've read don't seem like any guy I've ever seen; in other words, they usually have an obsession with confessing their deepest darkest emotions and secrets. That wouldn't work with Cassel. He's a rather deep character; he's internally troubled yet confident in his own non-worker con man abilities. Also, I rather enjoyed Lila's character, for the amount of time we got to see her in the story. She defied my expectations from the moment we first see her in a flashback; she is capable and independent--hell, it doesn't even look like she likes Cassel the way she likes him. And the fact that she isn't the narrator, ironically, makes her even more relatable to me. I think this is the trend for the general cast of White Cat. They don't fit one mold. Overall, Cassel's family members are coldhearted, ruthless crime ring thugs, but they look out for each other in was that only true family could. With regards to the side characters, I have to agree with Cassel when he says something like how he's thankful that Sam and Daneca still are his friends even though he uses them for his own purposes. I felt like Sam and Daneca were really shoved aside when it came to the real story, instead of being incorporated into Cassel's plans. 

Overall, it had its flaws, but this was a great book. Totally reading the sequel.  


 ===


Follow me:
Goodreads
Twitter