The Coldest Girl In Coldtown [Non-spoilers Review]

Original Title: The Coldest Girl In Coldtown

Author: Holly Black

Pages count: 419 pages

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 0316213101

Rating: 3.75 stars

This book made me appreciate Holly Black as an author. Before I started reading The Coldest Girl In Coldtown I was sick and tired of vampires. They seemed to be everywhere and the idea of reading about vampires had become a bit outdated and overrated. However, this book restored my faith on vampires and made me want to read a little more about them! That’s obviously Holly Black’s fault and she’s set herself as one of my favourite authors of 2014.

Vampirism has spread like a virus throughout the world. Now, Coldtowns have been set up all through the USA in order to keep vampires locked in walled-up cities. Coldtowns are isolated from the world by high-tech security systems and barriers (once you get in, you can’t go back into the world) but they are connected by live feeds. Some vampires are celebrities and being turned into a vampire has become desirable by society.

Tana is a curious teenage who goes to school and parties on the weekends. She has a pretty active social life and even had a couple of boyfriends before. Her life sounds fun, right? Well, NOT. One morning, she wakes up in a bathtub (Ke$ha style) after she fell asleep trying to hide from her ex-boyfriend at a summer sleep-over kind of party. She finds the house to be way too quiet since there should be a couple of dozen of teenagers roaming around making breakfast. Instead, she finds a couple of dozen bleeding corpses. BAM!

The house has been attacked by a group of vampires and she seems to be the only survivor. Looking for breathing humans, she finds her ex-boyfriend, Aiden, tied up to the bed and a benevolent vampire, Gavriel, tied up to a chair. Only problem is her ex is infected with vampirism. She unties both her ex and the vampire and sets on a journey to save herself and the ones she loves.

From the first page I knew this book was something else.  The writing was addicting as if it pulled you in and wouldn’t let you go. I started one night and finished reading it the next day; and that’s insane for me because I usually take about three or four days to read an average-length book. Holly Black’s narrative skills deserve an A though I have some complains.

As I was racing through the pages I couldn’t help but think that Tana’s motives to go into Coldtown weren’t heavy enough. She was willing to sacrifice herself and go through uncounted dangers just because she might or might not be infected. She didn’t even wait for some of the symptoms to show! After she made it to Coldtown a new challenge came up and a whole lot of stuff went down. That’s when I found it difficult to see the point of the whole book. Tana kept getting in trouble after trouble and I just kept thinking…

That’s fine though! Sometimes life doesn’t have a point itself. At the end of the day The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a tale of self-discovery and being able to give yourself up for others; and that’s a beautiful thing! Something else that wasn’t entirely clear to me was the blood-donning system but that might be my fault.

Tana didn’t undergo character development as much as other characters in the novel and I felt like her character could use some more dimension. I loved how determined she was and her ability to take control of difficult situations without freaking out. At the beginning of the book she seemed calm but later on we learn that she is fucking violent. I mean, she killed vampires with barely any weapons and every single time Violent Tana came out for a walk I couldn’t help but…

Oh how I loved Gavriel! I fell in love with him a little more by the second. He was a jerk,  dark, and mysterious but at the same time he irradiated light. Now, I’m not the type of guy that’s attracted to the typical ‘bad boy’ but he was just the male protagonist I needed and I wish there were more books with him in them. I can’t say the same about Aiden, Tana’s ex-boyfriend. I found him way too self-centered and childish. I understand why Tana dumped him! I did like that he was bisexual and even felt jealous of Gavriel. I need more LGBTQ characters please!

Let’s talk Midnight and Winter because I am mad at this couple of obvious idiots. Winter was clearly a puppet being dragged to hell by his dominant sister. Midnight is a total bitch and grew fond of her at first until she unveiled herself. I feel like she’s the true villain of this book since a lot of the bad things that happened in Coldtown were her fault. She deserved the way she ended up. I pity Winter though…

THAT PLOST TWIST AT THE END HAD ME SCREAMING! Sisterly love for the win!

Overall, I think this is a solid 3.75 stars for a novel that deals with such a worn out topic. Black knows how to write a good book and have you breathing for it.