Author: Holly Black
Age Group: Teens
# of Pages: 310
My Rating: 2.5/5
In society, there exist people called the curse workers. They are able to manipulate your emotions, memories, and luck with their hands. Cassel is the only person in his family who isn't a curse worker. But he has a secret. Three years ago, he killed Lila, his best friend.
Life starts to get strange as Cassel ends up sleepwalking and getting dreams of a talking cat. There seems to be secrets lurking around and he's determined to get to the bottom of it before things get out of hand.
This is literally the first novel I have read that I have no idea what the story was about. I don't know if this is only me or not, but I could not grasp the plot at all. I understood what was happening to the characters in the moment, but the overall picture was missing for me. For some reason, it was not working for me. I did finish the novel but yet I was left clueless, like everything flew over my head.
The writing was not bad though. It is readable and you could say I like it. The characters though were a little, ehhh. [POSSIBLE SPOILERS] I thought Cassel is a little stupid when he inflicted pain upon himself for the guilt that he killed Lila. I could understand if he cuts but he was sewing marble balls or something on his thigh (I can not recall properly so I apologize if I'm wrong) as torture. I'm just like, no, you're an idiot for doing something like that. End of the story. I don't care how much guilt one would have but doing something like shoving balls under your skin is something I do not want to read about. [SPOILERS END]
Do I recommend this novel? I can't exactly say because I had no idea what was happening. I recommend you reading other reviews before picking it up. It was a novel that was simply wrong for me.
3 comments:
Correction in the form of a BIG spoiler:
He put the stones under his skin as a protection against memory-altering curses once he realised he *wasn't* responsible for Lila's death. Not as torture or punishment - to keep him safe. They were under his skin so that if he was later searched, nobody would find them on him.
I really loved this one. I wonder why you found it so confusing.
I don't know, for some reason it wasn't making sense in my head. It's the first time a book has done this to me. Maybe I was in a reading slump and just couldn't process it properly.
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