Heist Society review

Heist Society
Ally Carter
February 9th 2010
Disney Hyperion/Orchard Books

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

There may be a point in the future when the next review I post isn't for an Ally Carter book, but that probably won't be for at least another week. Jeez, it's like Sarah Dessen all over again! I just enjoy her books so much it's probably not good for me. Especially seeing as I only have 3 left to read and then there will be NONE for a VERY LONG TIME and I'll be miserable about it like I am about the fact that I have to wait until 2013 for Sarah Dessen's next book.

I have to admit, I think I may have liked this book more the the GG books that I've read so far. I don't know, maybe I just have more a thing for thieves than I do spies. I do think it has a very different feel to the GG books, even though at first I was like aren't spies and thieves kind of almost the same thing with the gadgets and the missions, but it was a very different story. Well, of course there were similarities in places, but there wasn't ever a point where I was sitting there thinking this scene could've been taken straight out of a GG book, you know? 

Kat was really cool. Seriously freaking cool. She kind of makes me wish I'd been born into fictional family  of infamous art thieves. I would be terrible at it, of course, but think of all the fun you could have! I was really glad that we met her at the point that we did, though, because we got to see her and her doubts about staying in the family business without having her actually leave, because that all happened before the actual story takes place. It means we can get into the action a whole lot quicker, which was something I was really eager for because we didn't get that as much with GG.

Surprisingly (for me) I actually liked that there wasn't a definite romance in it.  There are definitely a couple of love interests going around, but nothing really predominant. Like, there isn't a guy who Kat just keeps on thinking about every 5 pages, making comments about their biceps or their eyes. It really is amazing just how much more you can fit into a book without that. I just really liked that Hale and Kat were really good friends, and that there was a lot of trust and loyalty there, and there is romantic tension between them, but it's not being laid on so thick that it feels like I'm being slapped in the face with it. It was a really good balance. Though I do hope her and Hale start to have a thing by the end of the series (anyone know how many books there are going to be?)

And the rest of Kat's crew! I really liked all of them, as well. Ally Carter has this thing in her books where she sets characters up to sound like they're going to be mean and the ends up making them be your favourite character (Macey and Gabrielle) and I'm still not sure if I like this or not, because it's awesome that she does this, but it seriously depresses me that I'm still the kind of person that assumes because a person has straighter hair or bigger boobs or nicer legs than the main character, then they must be a bitch. That's pretty screwed up. Maybe I should write an ill thought up discussion post about it to make up for the lack of activity over the past few weeks... Anyway. I really want to see more of the crew, too, and find out more about their childhood together or something, because they've all known each other for a long time. I guess I'll just have to read Uncommon Criminals. Right now.

I still can't believe that there was a time when I looked at Ally Carter's books and thought, you know what, I'm just not going to like these at all. Just proves how bad I am at judging my own taste.