Heist Society by Ally Carter

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ [5]
Release date: Feb. 9, 2010
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Format: hardback
Source: library
Pages: 287
Series: Heist Society (#1)
Challenge: --
Summary: 

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 priceless art collection has been stolen and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled off 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 dead 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.

I really loved the plot of this book. I mean, honestly, who hasn't ever imagined themselves as thieves trying to pull off a really big theft? If you're like me, then you probably daydreamed about that quite a bit, so you can imagine that I really enjoyed reading this.

Heist Society offers a lot of things. It's exciting and had me at the edge of my seat. Not to mention that the twists and turns had me wondering what was going to come next. In my opinion, this book really wasn't predictable at all; a few times I tried guessing what would happen next and was pretty much wrong every time.

This book also has a diverse set of characters. There were several times when the characters' interaction with each other made me chuckle. I loved how they were as close-knit as a family and how there wasn't that much tension between them. I really dislike when books place too much emphasis on relationship problems and focus on that instead of the actual story, but I thought this book did a pretty good job of balancing out the relationships versus the actual plot.

Ally Carter's writing flows pretty easily, and overall, Heist Society was a really fast read. I am definitely going to read the next book in the series (and hopefully, the little "love triangle" that was featured in this book will make a return as well! ;D)