Series Review: Curse Workers by Holly Black

Curse Workers #1

Publish By: Margaret K. McElderry
Rating: 3/5



Curse Workers #2

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 mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn’t got the magic touch, 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.
Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts 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, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.  



Curse Workers #3

Let me start off by saying that I really wanted to like this series more than I did. Now don't get me wrong it was well written, had a decent plot, the world building was some of the best I've seen in a YA novel, the characters were likable, and it had romance. All this normally adds up to a big fat win for me, in fact it they are the exact type of books I normally go for and love. So where did it go wrong?

I think the biggest problem for me was that I just didn't connect with the writing. As I said it was fairly well written and much better than some of the others out on the market at present. But, I just couldn't get into it, I was quite happy to put the books down and wait a few days before I continued on and I know there should have been times that I shouldn't have been able to put it down. It didn't help that I found the plot a little bit lack luster. There just wasn't that much excitment in it for me. Sure it was interesting and I really did want to finish the books and find out how it all fit but it was all a bit meh, especially in the last book where there were story lines that just fell flat.

I did appreciate the world building aspect, though. A lot of authors have trouble with this aspect, especially in YA lit, leaving their books feeling broken and incomplete. Ms Black did a great job of creating a world where a minorty where given the power to make things happen with just a touch of a hand. I especially liked that there were also consequences to using that power. It was fascinating to read about how the world, in particular laws, had developed with 'workers'. One thing that was interesting was their view on scandel and what constitutes as porn (ungloved hands).

The characters on the other hand I found likable but I didn't really connect with any of them, a fact that would be connected to my lack of connection with the writing. I mean I should have been shipping the whole way through but in the end I really couldn't have cared less if the guys got the girls. Another issue I had was placing the ages of people, specifically Barron and Philip. They always came across as way way way older than what they are in the books. Philip is meant to be 21 but acted like he was in his late 30's, the same went for Barron. I got that their working for a mob probably had some sort of impact but it just messed with my mind a bit too much. Cassel was interesting and it was good to read a YA from the persepctive of a boy rather than a girl but again I didn't really connect with him. Out of all of them I probably liked Daneca, Sam and Grandpa Desi the best, and they're not even main characters.

Overall, it was a decent read and I would recommend it for lovers of YA paranormal novels who want something different to read. I have read rave reviews about this series and it probably rightly deserves them, it just didn't quite hit the mark for me.