Red Glove

Csakúgy, mint voldemortsangel, én sem gondoltam volna, hogy a kerek egész első kötetet lehet még kerekebbé és még egészebbé tenni a második részben. Azonban a Red Glove talán még jobb is lett, mint a White Cat volt.
Holly Black nemcsak a cselekményt igazgatja remekül, hanem a karaktereivel is ügyesen bánik. Nem emlékszem, hogy lett volna akár egyetlen unalmas pillanat vagy akár rosszul vázolt szereplő a történetben.
(Egyébként aki teheti, hallgassa meg Jesse Eisenberg előadásában akár mindkét részt. Noha elsőre szörnyen idegesítő volt számomra a hangja, lassacskán megszerettem mégis. Nagyon együtt él a sztorival, és ha valaha megfilmesítenék a könyveket, hát szerintem csakis vele tegyék.)

I was pretty enamored with the first book in this series, White Cat, and yet I took my damn time picking up its sequel. It's an oddly anonymous series. The world-building is fascinating, and Holly Black takes on the difficult task of creating an alternate history world that looks exactly like ours but has deep biases and norms that are starkly different from our own. In this book, those elements expand. Unfortunately, the story around Cassel Sharpe doesn't move a whole lot.

Red Glove is fine. It's fine, really. It suffers greatly from middle-book syndrome in that its primary purpose is to get its characters from one point to the other, neither of which being the beginning or end of their journeys. As such, it feels a little aimless. After Cassel's dangerous and criminal brother finally gets his comeuppance and is killed, Cassel is recruited by two FBI agents to solve his murder as well as number of others that Cassel is fairly certain he committed himself. Meanwhile, he's being courted by mob boss Zacharov, trying to avoid the affections of Zacharov's daughter, Lila, who he loves but has been cursed to love him, and like any senior in high school, trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life, a task that is all the more complicated when who you are is inherently criminal. As you can imagine, he does a lot of fumbling around.

Holly Black's writing is quick and arresting, so this was easy to breeze through. I was never bored. The characters are as well-drawn as ever, and there are a lot great moments. But I kept wondering, “Where is this going?” It does go somewhere, and Cassel makes some significant decisions for himself, his family and his friends, but I don't know how strongly I feel about any of them. The central plot - the murder mystery - is probably the least interesting thing about this book. I much preferred the politics, Cassel's relationships with his friends and his family, and the atmosphere of crime as family. I do have a strong urge to read the last book as soon as possible because this book feels very incomplete. I say that of course, but if my track record is any indication, I probably won't.

Great book. Cassel is a fascinating main character, and this book is full of curses, cons, and other interesting things like that.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE FIRST BOOK. OTHERWISE, YOU'RE GOOD, OTHER MYSTERIOUS READERS WHO IS LITERALLY READING THIS TEXT. 8D.In the second instalment of Holly Black's Curse Workers series, Red Glove comes back with our protagonist Cassel Sharpe, with a whole new batch of problems. Not only is Lila, the girl he has a crush on, madly in love with him—blame his emotion worker mother—a family member has been murdered, with the only clue being a woman in red gloves entering the apartment. Federal agents are trying to make Cassel solve the murder case, but Zacharov, head of one of the mobs, is also attempting to recruit the transformation worker for his abilities. Unfortunately, if he sides with the Feds, he'll lose all respect with the other mobs, and he can't join the mob because the government has some leverage over him. With that and other minor subplots, you could say that Cassel has a lot on his hand.I actually finished [b:White Cat 6087756 White Cat (Curse Workers, #1) Holly Black http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1331930853s/6087756.jpg 6264661] around year ago, and I don't know why I bought Red Glove just last week. It was a pretty solid read compared to the earlier one, with the almost the same amount of suspense and fluidity. I felt that the first book was slightly better, but then again, books in the middle of the series are pretty hard to pull off. The author manages to do a spectacular job with it though, which I admired. Somewhere a quarter into the book, I had to put it down to do something else. What happened next? I just kept murmuring to myself, “One more chapter,” over and over again . . . until I ended up finishing the book. xD So if you loved [b:White Cat 6087756 White Cat (Curse Workers, #1) Holly Black http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1331930853s/6087756.jpg 6264661] then could turn into another favorite on your shelf. The characters are back, with the same amount of epicness. Lila's actions during the end of the book are believable, and I was actually surprised hearing Daneca's secret–although admittedly, I kind of figured it out once the heavy hints were dropped. Cassel's character continues to amaze me, as he manages to be a realistic male voice and a character I was rooting for in the story. These days, sometimes, I feel either too neutral or feel too annoyed at the character that when they're in a bad situation, the GIFs bellow express my opinion clearly.Thankfully, Ms. Black pulls Cassel off quite successfully. He makes mistakes sometimes, and sometimes he pulls things off. Although I'm not one of those screaming fangirls in a boy-band concert, I do like him a lot.Anyway. Back to the story. The book also manages to keep the mystery of one of the major plotlines, his brother's murder, actually a mystery. Haven't we all read that book where you could instantly who did it once he or she's name was mentioned? Nothing like that here, and I usually guess things correctly. The twists and turns that were delivered were presented well, and kept me hooked.“So, Max, if you loved it so much, then why not the full five stars?” one may ask. Well, I do have to admit that however engaging the threads to the tapestry are, all of them demanded to be given equal attention despite being a bit unnecessary to the plot. There were times that I felt like skipping ahead, as I felt bored with the scene. I just wished more attention had been given to the main storyline, as it was way more interesting than the other details Holly Black had in mind.Overall, it was a pretty good book. The rest was a smooth ride, and I felt like there was enough information presented to satisfy the reader, but not too much that it makes you want to read the next book. Well, it worked on my anyway. :DIn A NutshellMissing the case of the dreaded Middle-Book Syndrome, Holly Black crafts her alternate world almost perfectly, despite the major flaw. Indeed, Red Glove leaves you curious enough to pick up the sequel [b:Black Heart 1721146 Black Heart (Vampirates, #4) Justin Somper http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255656460s/1721146.jpg 1718524]. Four stars.

Couldn't really keep my attention.

This was such an interesting read. Kind of fucked up and bizarre, but really, would you expect anything else from Holly Black? Loved the different take on mobsters - with the curse workers and all that. Loved the ending, too. Cassel was flawed, but in a perfect kind of way. He knew it, made no excuses for it, but he wasn't an asshole. He was always trying to do the right thing...more so than most teenagers in his place would have done. I'm curious to see if there will be another book in this series, strsnge nowadays to only see 2. Though it ended with an actual ending I could see the story branching off maybe to follow Lila and her rise to the top. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Hmm. I liked it, but didn't get as caught up in it as I did with [b:White Cat 6087756 White Cat (Curse Workers, #1) Holly Black https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358274572l/6087756.SY75.jpg 6264661]. But if you read White Cat, you'll OBVI want to read this. Oh, Cassel <3–re-listened to in 2021 and don't know why I only gave it 3 stars before??? this may be an effect of the podcast fully altering my standards but I was INTO IT, also I fully forgot the ending of this one ahhhhhh

Not quite as gripping as the first one, but I still love this world and the crime families concept.