Holly Black knows how to write an interesting urban fantasy with a magic system intertwined with a healthy dose of crime. You’ll find this same dark and gritty fun in The Charlatan duology, and having loved that, I decided it was time to read White Cat, one of Black’s earlier works that had a similar vibe.
Dreaming of a white cat, Cassel Sharpe wakes up on his boarding school roof with no memory of how he got there. Confused by the deadly situation he sleepwalked into, Cassel is worried he’s either going crazy or someone cursed him. All a curse worker has to do is make brief skin-to-skin contact with Cassel, and he would be influenced by their power. The stunt on the roof gets Cassel kicked out of school, and he is forced to return home to a family he would rather keep his distance from. Despite being powerless himself, Cassel comes from a curse working family. His con artist mother is currently in jail, and his older brothers are left unsupervised to do as they wish. Thrown back into the mix with his family, Cassel starts to realize that all is not right around him, and dreams of the white cat persist.
Black wrapped up her Charlatan duology last fall, which features Charlie Hall, a con artist who gets caught up in the politics of people who control shadows. And now, having read White Cat, I realize this story walked so Charlie Hall could run. White Cat came out in 2010, and it has very similar threads to Black’s latest urban fantasy. Cassel’s mom is a con artist, and she’s been teaching Cassel the craft; his brother works for a crime family. The magic system is called curse working, and it influences and affects people based on the worker’s whims. Lots of power and control type dynamics are found within this magic system, and in Hall’s world, and at the center of both stories, there is crime and cons abound.
Cassel is a perfect characterization of a teenage boy with the ego and bravado to back it up. His delusional amount of confidence is at a level only a 17-year-old boy with no real-world experience can have. I really felt my age reading this story. As an adult with a mind on overdrive, I found Cassel’s blase attitude toward everything so painfully accurate for his phase of life. He gets kicked out of school, his manipulative family is being sketchy, and he keeps having weird dreams, yet no task is too tall for this young man. He doesn’t allow for doubt or insecurities to creep in. Cassel is very action-oriented and likes to think on his feet, which is a great character trait that keeps the plot moving and grooving. The downside is that he’s a teenage boy who doesn’t think much, so there isn’t a lot of introspection or character examination happening in this story. Cassel, the young man with the plan, is the story.
One of the most fascinating elements of this story is Cassel’s difficult family dynamics. His family is seriously messed up, and Black loves to use their horrible morals to pull some crazy stunts in White Cat. The crime family element makes everything dicey, then throw curse working on top of the pile, and you’re dealing with a lot of powerful people using their abilities to manipulate others in terrifying ways. Cassel’s mother is locked away, but she is a very real threat looming on the horizon. She’s spent her whole life manipulating her children, going as far as to train Cassel for a life of crime. Even with his mom’s limited reach, Cassel’s brothers are just as dangerous. His family members make decisions for him because they believe they know best. The problem is, Cassel doesn’t even know what those decisions are. He can just constantly tell that everyone is pulling the strings around him, and it’s up to him to try and outsmart them to find out the truth.
I’m a huge Holly Black fan, but I am finding that I may have missed my chance to enjoy her earlier young adult work. In true Black fashion, White Cat has some very fun twists and reveals, but I lacked the character connection and young mindset to truly enjoy Cassel’s perspective in this story.
Rating: White Cat – 6.5/10
-Brandee
