Heist Society
Author : Ally Carter
Publisher : Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Source : Bought
Pages : 326
Summary from Goodreads :
When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip 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 Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. 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 history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.
After about several professional teenage espionages, now it's about professional teenage thieves. Wow, Ally Carter, you rock my world! :D I always consider that hacker and thief are cool job because they run by smart people right? I love smarties! XD
I've interested at Heist Society for so long after I read unusual and the interesting summary of it and my cousin who already listened to its audiobook said it was really good. Thankfully, I didn't disappointed at all! The story moves fast and captivates with lovable-witty-smart characters and naratives, packed with action and mysteries, and made me keep guessing till the end.
At the first chapter, I couldn't really draw into the story, I kept wondering what actually happened on Kat, but then after some pages I realized that she (forcefully and set by some scenario) expelled from her school because suspected to do a big 'crime' to her school.statue and headmaster's car.
Katarina Bishop (wonderful name btw) is surely one of my favorite character. She's smart, seems having cute appearance (bob hairstyle and tiny body) definitely a genius thief at her age. I like the background story that Kat is from a great and famous thief family, all of her relatives are thieves, ones who steal rare and valuable things like paintings, jewelries or other arts for their own containtment and pride, but what more interesting is that Kat actually tries to escape from the world where she belongs to and lives more normal life, either because she's tired and wants to live as common girl in coomon school and having common friends, or she actually didn't get a real meaning of being a thief. But because she loves her father, she decides to go back willingly to her trueself, travels back and forth to more than 5 city and country at U.S and Europe with her crew in 2 weeks to track the vanished paintings (isn't it FABULOUS???? France, Italy, England, Prague, Poland, Austria, woah, HALE, MARRY ME! XD), bravely challenge herself to do the biggest robbing in her family history and makes a surprising descision at last. I also like (and glad) that Kat doesn't take an action by herself, but with her friend and cousin, some professional at specific skills at their young age . Each of them has their own characteristic and talents that make this crew more perfect. And I believe some of you who already read this book interest with one of the crew, the wealthy W. W. Hale V.
I can see that maybe a mysterious main male character is one of Carter's story characteristic (like Zach and now Hale) Despite his status as young multi-bilionaire, W. W. Hale V, or just Hale, is really a mystery, why he willingly gets involving on every Kat's mission and support her return to thieves world since he's no one of Kat's relatives, just a bored rich boy. But well, mysterious guy always draws attention :) It just slightly describe about how exactly Kat and Hale met and I hope there'd be a special story about it. Oh and of course, finally we can know what exactly his name part, W.W. stand of ;p
I didn't find or actually there's no single love scenes here, although Hale obviously likes Kat and Kat isn't sure about it and always denies it. But I found their relationship is really cute. Hale mostly does everything for Kat and Kat trusts him, depends on him all the time. I hope their relationship will be more developed at next books
Overall, Heist Society is fantastically fun and smart written, will grip you with its action, suspense and mysteries. The robbing techniques are told very sophisticating and professionally which is very enjoyable and I awed by their (or author's) smartness. Ally Carter sure has a deep knowledge and imagination about it, awesome! :D It maybe leads by 'criminals' but actually they're good people who try to save others and you won't be disappointed by the ending :) I can't wait for the sequel, Uncommon Criminal to be release here :)
NB : sorry if this review is messed up. This is phone blogging and like lost review ability a bit because life is damn busy out there :(
