Author: Holly Black
Genre: young adult, vampire, romance
Published: September 17, 2013 (first published September 3, 2013)
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-0-316-27755-6
Link: goodreads
Synopsis:
COLDTOWN WAS DANGEROUS.
TANA KNEW.
A GLAMOROUS CAGE,
A PRISON FOR THE DAMNED
AND ANYONE WHO
WANTED TO PARTY WITH THEM.
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody ix of predator and prey. And once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked opulent heart of Coldtown itself.
Clearing her throat, she tried to find the right words. “I’d rather you didn’t kill everyone in the world, yes, that’s true. It’s a rare enough thing to find someone who can see me the way I am, no less to peer down into dark parts of my heart, the parts of me even I don’t want to look at. You did that and you laughed at my jokes, too. So I’m scared, because you’re not just no human, you’re not like anyone – there’s nobody like you in all the world and it’s you I want. I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.”
* * *
I jumped into the Coldest Girl in Coldtown with great expectations after going through reviews that rave positively about it. To my surprise the Coldest Girl in Coldtown did absorbed me. There’s this part of it that made me want to read through everything at once yet, at the same time, I found myself asking, what is it that I particularly like about this book?
While I do admit that the Coldest Girl in Coldtown is an unputdownable book, I also don’t find it as something really that great (although I don’t really have so much negative things to say about this book). I’m honestly torn about what I truly feel for this novel.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a vampire novel and it treats vampirism as some kind of sickness – you get bitten but you down turn into a vampire immediately. Apparently you can recover. What’s even more interesting here is how Holly Black added the idea of how today’s society could receive vampirism and the immortality it carries. Although I don’t particularly like Midnight as a character, Black was able to get the idea cross through her and few more characters.
Also, I’m glad that Tana isn’t the usual I’m-brave type of character nor is she the lame-and-weak type. Tana is plainly likeable, a bit crazy in a lot of decision making times, and maybe she just does what needs to be done. Gavriel, on the other hand, isn’t the dead-for-Tana (no pun intended) kind of guy. He busies himself with his own business and at the same time runs to Tana’s rescue when she gravely needs it. While I wasn’t a fan of Midnight and the rest of the vampire-wannabe cast (as I mentioned), I think that they were nicely written for their part in the story.
* * *
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is perhaps the best vampire novel I’ve read for now. So I believe that it’s certainly a worthy read especially for those who love the YA-vampire genre itself. It’s something that quite difficult to put down because of the suspense and the beautifully written characters (especially Tana and Gavriel!).
worthy read. best vampire novel I've read (for now).
