Hey ForeverBookers,
I’m so sorry that I’ve been absent from blogging for so long! I haven’t been very well just recently. I’m better now, though 🙂.
I’ve just finished Catwoman by Sarah J Maas and I enjoyed it!!!
3.5 Stars!
I read Catwoman: Soulstealer for a few readathons:
The September Book Bingo on Facebook, the new release category.
The Litwits readathon for a female protagonist because Catwoman is a girl, obviously.
Reading Rivalry - A book featuring a wanted criminal. Catwoman is that character.
Popsugar 2018 challenge - A book featuring an animal in the title - although it’s not about Cats, it’s called Catwoman.
My OWLS exams - Shapeshifter/Cat on the cover - there’s a cat motif on the Waterstones exclusive hardcover.
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Catwoman tells the story of Selina Kyle who becomes the infamous Catwoman to ultimately try to save her younger sister, Maggie from an illness. This requires her to steal valuable items to get money. Can she come to terms with stealing? Does she make any friends along the way? You’ll have to read to find out!
It’s an upper YA novel that uses bad language.
Spoilers below...
At the very beginning of Catwoman we’re introduced to both Selina and Maggie. They’re living in the Upper East End, a run down part of New York. When they get a call from the authorities, they want to take Maggie into care because it’s clear that Maggie and Selina’s mother has left them to fend for themselves, and a sick child living in squalor isn’t great.
“Cops meant questions. Questions about their living situation.”
Because Selina is old enough to fend for herself, she doesn’t get taken with Maggie. She has to live on her own terms.
It’s revealed within the first chapter that Maggie has Cystic Fibrosis. Maggie isn’t the main character so not a lot of time is spent describing what this condition is. All that’s really said is that she will have a much shorter lifespan than that of healthy people. I wish we could have spent just a little more time with Maggie and had gotten to know the real struggles of living with CF, as this would have opened the novel up more.
Selina wanting to make life better for Maggie, who she knows she’ll see again one day, becomes Holly Vanderhees, a socialite to try and disguise herself and to blend in. She attends lots of parties and get togethers to make herself known as Holly. This is all so she can become the antiheroine Catwoman, to steal and take things of value to try and come up with a way of saving her sister.
“She could have sworn that ancient bit of bronze seemed to smile back. Seemed to say, Go on, take it.
So Selina did.”
She’s willing to do whatever, if there’s a chance it could save Maggie.
Another element of Catwoman is the League. This is a group of people who work for a horrible woman, Nyssa. We don’t see very much of Nyssa, which is good because I found these parts of the story the most boring because they’re not really expanded upon at all. There’s an old, bitter rivalry between Selina and Nyssa. If we’d maybe had more explanation of the League and Nyssa’s role, the story would have flowed better, I believe. The only thing that I could grasp is that Selina spent time with the League after Maggie was taken. We get to see some of Selina’s training from her time with the League. For example, when Selina has to fight Nyssa.
“Survival of the fittest. Biology had been one of her favourite classes. It seemed the League took Darwinism to another level.”
A very significant part of Catwoman is the friendship between Selina and her two accomplices, Poison Ivy (Ivy) and Harley Quinn (Harley). Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are already established characters within the DC universe, I believe. Ivy is very much a environmentalist. She cares very much for the world around her as is seen in “Plants don’t like cold.” I’m not absolutely sure but I thought that Ivy was somewhat plant based herself. As I said, I haven’t read/watched any DC Icons books/shows before so I don’t know what Poison Ivy is meant to look like, other than the descriptions the author gives us. She’s described as being a “mad scientist who specialised in plant-based weapons and toxins.” From this, I took Poison Ivy to be a crazy character who cared about the planet more than anything else. I wasn’t far wrong. Harley Quinn on the other hand is a tougher character than Ivy. She comes across as someone who if she doesn’t get what she wants, she won’t compromise. It’s either the whole thing or nothing at all. In one of the final battles where Selina suggests busting the Joker, Harley’s ex out of jail, Harley says yes but only if she can spend some time with him.
“We proved twice now that we can break someone out. And I have it on good authority that my man’s aware of us—of our little shopping spree here in Gotham, and he’s pissed we’re taking so long.
Ivy flinched at the two words—my man.”
This shows Harley’s anger at Selina and Ivy for being so careful. All she wants is to get her guy out of jail, she doesn’t care about anything important, like her companions do. All Selina wants is to save her sister and all Ivy wants is to save the world around her, whereas Harley is pretty selfish in just wanting her boyfriend out of prison.
There’s a light lesbian relationship between Ivy and Harley. Ivy comes across as interested in only women. When talking to just Selina she says that she “had never kissed a girl I liked...”. This is significant, especially when Harley comes in to the story. Ivy doesn’t like how Harley is obsessive about her ex, the Joker. Ivy loves Harley, but does Harley truly love Ivy? You’ll have to read to find out!
Lastly, I want to summarise the romance between Selina and Luke or Batwing, as he’s also known in this novel. Batwing is the hero of Catwoman: Soulstealer. He’s the second in command to Batman. He’s trying to catch and work out who Catwoman is for most of the story. Luke meets Selina in her different guise as Holly to begin with. They hit it off and start having a few date nights here and there, where they sit and watch Jeopardy! on television.
“Gotham City was primed to fall. All it would take was a little encouragement.
What fortunate timing that the sanctimonious Batman was currently gone—no sign of him for weeks now...”
The previous novel is called Batman: Nightwalker. I haven’t read this yet so I don’t know if there’s a direct link there or not. Batman doesn’t actually ever come in to the story of Catwoman, just Batwing.
Does Luke find out who Holly really is? Do they develop their relationship? You’ll have to read to find out!
What did I like about “Catwoman SoulStealer”?
I liked that Selina had a reason to become Catwoman - her sister, Maggie’s illness. In so many books where there’s an antihero storyline there’s not a real, valid reason as to why that main character does something bad or becomes an antihero, they just do it unprovoked. Here, there was and I appreciated it.
I loved the relationship that grew between Selina and Luke. To begin with I was unsure as to how it would play out but as we got more scenes of them together I could see trust brewing between them. I love these sorts of relationships.
I liked the friendship between Selina, Ivy and even Harley. Particularly, Selina and Ivy who seemed as though they could rely on each other for anything. I thought a real sisterly bond grew between the two characters.
It was good how there was LGBT+ rep between Ivy and Harley. The novel really doesn’t focus on this romance. It’s very much in the background but it’s still there.
What didn’t I like about “Catwoman SoulStealer”?
I didn’t like how the SoulStealer part was never explained. Yes, Catwoman stole but she never stole souls. I think this could have been expanded on or the title could have been changed.
I thought the Cystic Fibrosis could have been expanded on a little bit more. Not so it would have taken over the entire plot but just to learn a little more about the illness.
The descriptions of the League were few and far between. If the book had been lengthened a little bit we could have had more understanding of this part of Selina’s life.
I think the author is a better fantasy writer that writes her own worlds than a fantasy writer that sets stories in our world. In ACOTAR, she’s able to create everything in Prythian but in Catwoman: Soulstealer the plot was more boring because there were limits to what she could write, I feel. This is just personal preference of course.
Overall then, while I liked Catwoman: Soulstealer there were a few things I didn’t love about it, as written above, hence my 3.5 star rating!
I think I’m going to reread my favourite book series EVER next, The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, which I’ve already reviewed. I don’t think I’ll review them again. However, after the original trilogy I’ll read and review the new book in this series, Time’s Convert. That’ll probably be up in a few weeks! 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂!
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