Book Review: White Cat

White Cat
By Holly Black
Review by Alex P

“What if everything in our world was exactly the same, only magical?” Basic boarding school bureaucracy, prisons, lives, jobs etc. but people have magic abilities too, like the ability to transform people into objects, or curse others.

Cassel is a kid who just doesn’t fit in. He knows the right things to say to make people laugh and not be a target for harassment, but doesn’t have a friend group of his own. He’s learned from his imprisoned con-woman mother how to read and trick people, and he does it well. After sleepwalking and waking up on the roof of his school, he is suspended and moves in with family, trying to find the root cause of his night-time escapes. He has dreams around a white cat that relate to his deepest secret- He killed his best friend.

A unique mix of slice of life and fantasy that isn’t a difficult read. Good for fans of Artemis Fowl-esque fantasy-realism, as its the next step-up content wise but the writing isn’t too complex and it blends the two genres well.