The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Disclaimer: I'm going to have some 'fan girl' moments during this. I've reviewed only one other book by Holly Black on this blog so far, but I'm hoping to change that as I pick up some of her other books to reread. YESSSS. Anyways.

I am under the impression that this is the first vampire novel that Holly Black has written, although I'm quite positive she's written a few vampire short stories before. So this isn't her first go at the vampire rodeo.

Did I mention there are vampires?

Anyways, an amazon 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." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

I fell in love with this book. NO SHAME.

There was a great combination of survival elements, to fear, to it's own twist on vampire mythology. It also helped that Tana was a badass in the best way. She had only a handful of hiccups, but they were for the better....oh I'll just talk about the book.

The book begins the morning after a party. Tana wakes up in the bath tub and is like, "WHOAAAA....why didn't anyone wake me up sooner?" to stagger out of the bathroom and to find the house relatively deserted. Then she smells it. She gets to the living room and it's a massacre of all the party attendees; they've been ravaged by vampires. There's blood everywhere and Tana has an understandable meltdown-like moment. She stumbles around and finds her ex-boyfriend (Aidan) tied up on a bed with the company of a vampire. The sun is starting to set, her ex-boyfriend has been infected (turned cold), and Tana scrambles to save both of them by dumping them into her car. Ex-boyfriend (Aidan) in the seat and the vampire (Gavriel) in the trunk. As they scramble out of the house, the vampires that killed everyone try to snatch her, but she wriggles away.

Just as a heads up; the hardcover version is about 400 pages long, but I'm going to cut myself off at the 100 page mark because there's a lot of story that should be left unspoiled. (YOU'RE WELCOME.)

They take a journey where they get to know each other a bit better before they decide they're going to Coldtown. The US has five cities which have been walled off and deemed Coldtowns where they can put the infected and the vampires to help prevent the spread of the disease. Tana wants Aidan to stave off the infection (an almost ninety day process) to become a healthy human again. Gavriel wants to go for his own reasons.

They wind up at the last stopping point before reaching Coldtown where they encounter Midnight and Winter; a brother and sister who are obsessed with vampire culture and would like to become vampires themselves. They're bloggers who are connected on chat forums and some sort of video web site that they seem to know what's what. They too want to go to Coldtown and are thrilled with the prospect of having a ride there. The siblings are kind of an odd pair that give another perspective of the world; that the vampires are blessed and not cursed. Their disease is to be coveted, not feared, etc. Something they too would like to be. They have an interesting and kind of active role throughout the book.

All throughout the action of the main story line, there are bits of Tana's past sprinkled in like how her mother got infected and bit Tana (turning the Mom into a vampire for real) and more exposition about how vampirism works.

There's a good blend of main story, back story, action, and Tana being a badass. I also LOVED the reveal towards the end (WHICH I WILL NOT SAY) but it was wiggle my toes pleasing. Hehe.

Happy reading!

Edit (1/19/14): This was the top result for my google image search when finding a good cover photo to include for this review. ....YOU'RE WELCOME.