Review: Heist Society (Heist Society) by Ally Carter

Heist Society by Ally Carter. I can't even begin to talk about this without wanting to start shrieking with excitement. Because this book is INCREDIBLE.

Heist Society by Ally Carter

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.

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When I began reading Heist Society, I'd already read (and fallen in love with) the fantastic Ally Carter's also fantastic Gallagher Girls series. So I knew (well, hoped) I'd like HS. I just didn't realize HOW MUCH.

See, I absolutely love heist books and movies. You know, movies like Ocean's 11, The Italian Job, that one scene in National Treasure when they steal the Declaration of Independence...And books like HEIST SOCIETY. What I love about them is the elaborate schemes, the character taking over the thief, the quick costume changes in the course of an elevator ride, a computer hack that I could only dream of. I love the code names for both people and plans whose meanings are implied but not flat out said. ("Hansel and Gretel?" "No, we only have the one grenade launcher." etc.)

And then, I love the story. Katarina wants to be a normal girl. However, normal isn't quite so easy when you come from a family of thieves. That's why, when the story begins, Kat's just pulled off one last con--getting herself into boarding school. And things are going fine for her, until her best friend Hale gets her kicked out so she can help him clear her father's name for a crime he (for once) didn't commit. 

Teaming up with the other underage members of "The Family", Kat and Hale come up with a plan to clear Bobby Bishop's name: By finding out who really did take the paintings--and stealing them back.

This book rocks. This book more than rocks. This book...boulders.

You must go read this book. For real.

This book gets... <*><*><*><*><*>

(:D)

~Mag