The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Title: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black
Read: May 25, 2014

Summary: 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. The only problem is, 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.

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. goodreads

Review: I'm not sure which blog I read about this book  on but I thought I remembered the blogger talking about how awesome it was, so I had high expectations. After reading it, I'm a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book. I just didn't love it and wouldn't recommend it to all of my friends which was the reaction I was expecting to have. That's a let down. But let's ignore my feelings and get right into the review.

This book is about a world where Vampires have become mainstream and "Coldtowns" have popped up throughout the country to contain them. People are allowed in Coldtowns but mostly for food and entertainment for the vampires (of their own volition. This isn't a some sick rule the government came up with to help the vampires.) That being said, once you check in, you never check out (for the most part, there are obviously some exceptions.)

So we are dealing with vampires and humans co-mingling. There are a lot of ways a story like this could go wrong and I'm happy to say, Holly Black didn't do any of them. There was a whiff of the triangle love and insta love, which I loathe, but it was pretty quickly dissipated and either was handled well in the story later or fell off completely (not telling you which one did what.) I really liked the world-building that Black did as well. For a vampire story to catch my interest, it has to explain the history of vampires, how the "infection" spreads or grows, how they hide or expose themselves, and how the "real world" deals with them. This book had all of those and it was well thought out. Coldtowns are a unique idea and Black did a good job of describing them and developing them. I also liked the history of the vampires and why they are now mainstreamed.

The characters were kinda meh for me. I really liked Gavriel and the fact that he was a little crazy but we could excuse it. I also thought the antagonists were well developed. Tana just didn't do it for me though. I didn't dislike her at all but I didn't really connect with her. I also felt that some of the extra characters were either really dumb (Aidan and Pearle) or could have been developed more (Jameson.)

I really enjoyed the ending and the main relationship that developed and it made me wonder if this is going to be a series. The internets say it's a stand-alone and I think it would be perfect as is, but I also think the ending provided an easy story for a sequel. I'm hoping it's not a series, but if it was, I'd follow along.