22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, February 9, 2010
I always love Ally's books, and this was no exception. Heist Society has it all-suspense, adventure, travel, a smidgen of romance, a boarding school, a crazy family with a history that matches, and an all teenage crew of thieves. Katarina Bishop is a smart girl who just wants out of the family biz and be normal, but doesn't realize all she's left behind. Kat and her delicious billionaire friend, Hale, round up a merry band of thieves that are their best friends to help get Kat's father out of a tight spot. If they don't return what a seriously evil guy thinks her father stole, there will be some serious consequences. Kat and the team scramble to perform one of the most difficult and risky heists anyone in her family have ever attempted, before time runs out. If that doesn't reel you in I don't know what will. This was a seriously good and fast- paced book, pretty much impossible to put down. Take my advice, and read it ;)
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
larceny in the heart, grifting in the soul - Kat returns to the fold, September 4, 2010
I can, I guess, see why Ally Carter's HEIST SOCIETY draws in the teen girl crowd; this book, after all, is tailored for them. The premise is certainly attention-catching, especially if you're into heist and caper stories. HEIST SOCIETY affects the off-handed elan and cool of, say, OCEAN'S ELEVEN and succeeds at certain levels. To me, that book cover suggests a sort of callback to Audrey Hepburn circa BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. HEIST SOCIETY is a brisk and breezy read, and pretty good. But there are some issues.
I don't know that there are other books out there that feature teens more worldly and self-possessed than 15-year-old Katarina Bishop and the young crew she establishes. Kat, a larcenous prodigy, comes from a family of elite professional thieves, except that three months ago she abandoned that life of crime, her final con (or so she thought) that of enrolling herself into the prestigious Colgan boarding school. But - as they say - just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in...
Kat is lured back to the family business when her master thief of a dad becomes the primary suspect for the audacious theft of a private collection of paintings. Or Kat's family thinks so, as well as several Interpol agents. Kat's father denies having done the caper, but what really galvanizes Kat into action is that the seriously sinister hombre Arturo Taccone also believes her father to be the culprit. Taccone gives Kat a two week deadline to recover the paintings or dot dot dot... Two meager weeks for Kat not only to learn where the vanished paintings have gotten to but also to gather her own thieving crew to break in and steal them. There's no question that this is by far her most ambitious heist, and this with three months of rust on her.
There's, naturally, a fun, sophisticated element in Kat's jet-setting and globe-gallivanting ways, and it doesn't hurt that her former and once again teen partner-in-crime, Hale, is rich as Croesus. I also enjoyed the thieves' mythos which Ally Carter constructs around Katarina, and I particularly love the notion of legendary aliases which had been floating around forever in the thieves' world, aliases that ambitious thieves assume when they take on an epic caper. I will say that Carter maybe could have better developed her characters. Pretty much all the roles in the book are likable but feel straight out of stock casting. One particular character shows up late in the game, and Carter writes him in such a way that he seems only to serve as a foil for Hale and to introduce an added element of mystery. Out of all of Kat's interactions, the most fascinating for me is her dealings with the shady mobster Arturo Taccone. Speaking as a dude, I'm not so into Kat's teen romantic complications. I don't particularly find Hale dreamy or swoony or dashing. But the girls are eating up that aspect, so mission accomplished for the writer. At least, it's not as despicably icky as what's been going down in Twilight.
Ally Carter has also written the Gallagher Girls spy series, and HEIST SOCIETY was a fun enough read that I'm planning on checking out those other books. Thieves and con men are some of my favorite characters to read about or see films about, and so this book was never gonna get the bum's rush from me. There's also a bit of a history lesson as Carter instructs the reader on a point of artistic atrocity committed by the Nazi regime during World War II. Some things about the book bugged me, like the shallow characterization, as mentioned, but also that not enough time is spent on the big heist itself. And maybe security at London's imposing Henley museum isn't quite as impregnable as first made out to be. Kat herself, for a gifted thief and mastermind, doesn't do enough on page except rack up flying mileage, not with a deus ex machina like Hale hanging around. I will say that when the heist finally goes down, boy, there are some taut moments. But they don't really achieve the suspense and sudden reverses of OCEAN'S ELEVEN or THE ITALIAN JOB, if that's what you're comparing this to. Also, I thought there would be some sort of payoff with Uncle Eddie who had ordered Kat not to meddle, but there was nothing there.
We never do learn the identity of the mysterious Visily Romani, and maybe that could lead into the sequel (and I'm guessing there will be a sequel). HEIST SOCIETY isn't shabby at all, a fun, lightweight caper novel. Perfect for a day at the beach or a lazy Sunday spent on the porch. Give it a try, grab some iced tea, go prop your feet up, maybe on a Twilight book.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If the Ocean's 11 crew had kids they'd be a lot like Kat and company, February 18, 2010
When I first heard that Ally Carter was coming out with a new series I was both excited and wary. Excited because I really enjoyed her Gallagher Girls books and wary because I wasn't sure if a new series would live up. Well, I shouldn't have worried because not only did Heist Society live up to the goodness of Gallagher Girls it surpassed it. I really enjoyed this book. To get an idea of what its like think about if the characters in Ocean's 11 or on the tv show Leverage had children who grew up in their world....these are the teens that you find in Heist Society they live on the edge of the law and stealing and pulling cons is as easy for them as breathing air is for us.
I loved the cast of characters in this book. They were all just so much fun! And where Cammie Morgan can sometimes get annoying and repetitive Kat does not. She is smart and feisty and she tries to leave the life she's always known to be a normal teen. But normal isn't what its cracked up to be and its hard to turn your back when your family needs your help. So she's pulled back into the life of cons and we are taken along for the ride across the US and Europe. Heist Society was a well told story, it was fast paced and filled with enough witty lines that had me laughing aloud as I read the book. I couldn't put this one down and I hated for it to end. There wasn't anything that I can say that I disliked in this book it just seemed to have it all. Adventure, strong characters, strong plot, romance, etc etc etc. I can't wait for Carter to come out with a sequel for this book. If you decide to only read one series of Ally Carter, then choose this one....its worth the trip.
As originally posted on my blog Ticket to Anywhere
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