Writing lessons learned from HEIST SOCIETY

Thanks to the advice of Laura Pauling, I just finished Heist Society, by Ally Carter. What a fun, fast-paced adventure! My favorite description is "Ocean's 11 for teens," but here's a longer blurb from Amazon:

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 expected.

If you read and write YA, and you love a fun caper, this book is a gem. Here are some of the many writing lessons I learned from Heist Society:

• When writing kid lit, create a realistic reason why the kid is doing the story's heavy lifting--In this case, the author deftly set it up where Kat's dad had just done another "job" in Paris, and was being followed by Interpol. The villain accuses Dad of stealing valuable paintings, but Dad is unable to get himself out of the pickle. Enter Kat and her merry band of thieves to get the job done.
• Get to the point...literally--The characters in this book hopped from New York to France to Italy to Austria and to England. But the author didn't bore us with long lines at the airport, security checkpoints, and traffic to and from hotels. No, she jumped ahead to the part in the story that mattered, and left all the unnecessary details behind.
• Remind readers of the deadline--Every few chapters there was a reminder page that simply read "Thirteen days to deadline," and so on. This reminded me that Kat was running out of time, and added tension.
• Add a deep layer--I was already invested in the story because Kat's father's life was at stake as retaliation for stealing valuable paintings. But the author took it one step further. Kat learns the paintings in question are not just any paintings--they had been stolen from Jewish families during the Holocaust, and presumed lost. This detail added depth to what the characters were trying to accomplish. Not only would Kat save her father if her plan succeeded--these paintings could be returned to the rightful families.
• Your character breaks the law? Add charm--For Kat, stealing is the family business. We can't hate her for doing what she was raised to do. Hale, the love interest, is a billionaire who steals for the fun of it. But he's charming, and we like him anyway.
• When the reader least expects it, add a new character--The plan was in motion. The crew was ready. But when I least expected it, Kat bumped into a pick pocket, Nick, and invited him to join her crew. Nick added friction with Kat's love interest, Hale, and also added complications with the final job.
• Hint at familiarity--Kat and her hunky billionaire friend, Hale, have a storied past. They hint at it, such as botched jobs and what they've learned from them, but we aren't bored with long flashbacks about those previous jobs. We learn just enough to keep us interested, and then it's back to the main story.

Heist Society was a fun read that dug deep into family history and loyalty. I highly recommend it!

Have you read this book? If so, what was your opinion? Can you share any of the lessons you've learned from a great book?

photo credit