Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Title: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release date: September 3rd 2013
Source: Netgalley
Format: egalley

Rating: 4/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

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.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is one of my most anticipated books that were released this year, the synopsis sounds great and the mere fact that it is a book about vampires, I needed to read it. And therefore I had sky high expectations, and maybe because of this I felt that something was amiss for the book to satisfy me completely. I felt that some of the key moments were interrupted by having some background tales/world-building or the point of view of some other character, I wanted to stay only with Tana and know what was going on with her, Aidan and Gavriel.

I felt this book a little in the genre of post-apocalyptic, in addition to being about vampires, because 10 years before the story begins, the fact that vampires were real was disclosed by an epidemic and that vampirism is transmitted through the bite of a vampire and the infected (they´re called colds) become vampires by drinking human blood. So the government to contain the epidemic decided to walled some cities, with humans, vampires and colds inside, and once you're inside these walled cities called Coldtowns, you can never leave. And these Coldtowns are really dangerous cities, with an air of devastation and where you can trust no one.

The story is not like other vampire books that I've read lately (at least YA novels), the plot is dark and somewhat decadent with disturbing moments. The Coldest Girl in Coltown begins dramatically, Tana awakens in a bathtub, the day after a party with friends from school, to discover that all were attacked by vampires and they´re dead, the only survivor besides Tana is her ex-boyfriend Aidan, who was infected with the virus that transmits vampirism and in the same room is Gavriel, a vampire who is chained and helps her to escape. So while they´re fleeing other vampires, Tana decides to take Aidan to a Coldtown, a quarantined city where they take the infected, and there reside vampires along with humans willing to donate blood just to attend parties organized by vampires.

I really liked Tana's character, she´s a girl who in adversity remains calm despite being scared, has a good heart, is clever and always is looking to help others even when they do not deserve it. Aidan is a selfish guy who first sees for himself and then for others, but he´s fond of Tana, plus he likes having her around because she´s familiar to him. And Gavriel the vampire, is handsome, dangerous, mysterious, not completely sane.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, but it has its slow parts and other chapters from the point of view of other characters that I was tempted to skip them, but I didn´t. I liked the romance but I felt it a little short, the story has several action scenes and here the vampires are dark, violent and scary.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

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