Monday, November 11, 2013

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black



Title - The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author - Holly Black
Series - None
Release Date - September 3rd, 2013
Publisher - Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format Acquired - Hardcover

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix 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 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 a Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

Party girl Tana finds herself in the middle of an intriguing story after she wakes up one morning to find all of her friends and peers dead. Every single drop of blood was drained out of them. A normal person would have high-tailed it out of that house as soon as he/she saw all the bodies and realized what had happened, but nope not Tana. Instead, she discovers her ex-boyfriend Aidan chained up in a room with a somewhat friendly vampire who warns her that there are two other vampires in the building who would not hesitate to devour them. Thus starts the story of Tana, the girl who wants to live.

Tana is a strong character who is willing to risk her life to save others. She struggles with demons of the past who still haunt her thoughts and dreams. But it is because of those demons that she is dedicated on not allowing Aidan to become fully vampire and to saving herself from becoming Cold. Although she is not fearless, she puts up a good front when facing the dangers that are bound to change her life forever.

This story is told in a very neutral pace; it's not too fast or too slow, which makes it easy to follow. There is sometimes a change in time, meaning that readers go into the memories of the characters and learn a little about their pasts. With that, you get to learn about Tana's many brushes with death and how she always seems to escape going Cold.

During their journey to the nearest Coldtown, Tana, Aidan, and vampire boy meet a pair of twins who go by the names Midnight and Winter. The twins' goal is to travel into Coldtown and get willingly turned into vampires themselves simply because they don't want to go through any more birthdays. They don't particularly care how it happens as long as it does. The twins' contacts inside Coldtown seem harmless and happy to help Tana and Aidan at first, but it does not take long for them to show their true colours. What I really like about this story is how the villains and the good guys are somehow balanced; meaning that, while Tana meets people who are up to no good, she also makes friends with some who truly have her back.

Most of all, I enjoyed the many twists and turns The Coldest Girl in Town takes. I could kind of see them coming but was still pleasantly surprised when dark secrets were revealed and the unspeakable kept happening. My only regret is that it wasn't longer. If it were not for the awesome writing style of Holly Black, I don't think I would have liked this book as much as I did. She managed to make a 'cheesy' vampire story into a very, well, 'non-cheesy' vampire story.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
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