Finished White Cat by Holly Black. This is the first book in her young adult fantasy Curse Workers series.

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers, or people who can do everything from kill you to change your emotions with just a touch of their hands. Cassel doesn’t have any magic and is determined to have a normal life — even though he can’t help running occasional cons, just like the rest of his family does. He also feels extremely guilty and with good reason, since he killed his friend Lila a few years ago for no apparent reason. But Cassel’s life changes when he starts dreaming about a white cat who’s trying to tell him something important. Soon, Cassel realizes that his family is keeping a big, big secret from him — and that he’s going to have to pull off the con of his life just to survive …

I love books about thieves and conmen, so I was really interested in reading this one. Cassel is a great character, struggling with trying to fit in at his fancy prep school but also still in love with running cons and being smarter than everyone else. I really enjoyed his little asides about how cons work and how everyone can be a mark if you know the right buttons to push.

The world building was also really unique in this book. Everyone wears gloves since you never know what someone could do to you just by shaking your hand, and Black looks at the social implications of curse work as well. All of that was really well done.

One thing that I didn’t like though was Cassel’s family. I know they’re all basically conmen, but the only one who came off as likable and who actually cared about Cassel was his grandfather. And Cassel is far more lenient with his brothers and his mother than they deserve after he finds out what they’ve done to him. Also, the end of the book was a bit of a downer. It fits in with the world/characters, but still, I would have liked a little happier ending.

Overall, though, I thought this was a good young adult book, and I’m interested in reading more in the series. Thumbs up.

Up next: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.