The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Vampires have always lived hidden among us - powerful and elite, yet secretive and self-controlled.That is, until the early 2010s when a young vampire went rogue and started turning people all across the globe, creating a new race of inexperienced, uncontrollable monsters. The governments stepped

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in, and now all vampires and anyone who might be infected ("Cold") are locked in ghettos called "Coldtowns", which have turned into faux-glamorous communes full of all-night parties broadcast to the outside world on the internet. This is the world that Tana grew up in, living a semi-normal life, until the day when she passes out at a house party and wakes up the next day to find almost all the other guests dead, and a peculiar old vampire chained up in a corner.

This is really the best YA vampire book one could ask for. It's well-written, the characters almost never made my eyes roll, and the world-building is really great. I especially enjoyed the complexity of the vampire infection (If bitten, one might become Cold within 48 hours. Once Cold, one only turns into a vampire if they drink human blood within 88 days, etc.) and the socioeconomic implications (rich people can afford to buy their way out of a Coldtown, etc.)
Highly recommended if you're into this sort of thing.

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"Vampires were fairy tales and magic. They were the wolf in the forest that ran ahead to grandmother's house, the video game big boss who could be hunted without guilt, the monster that tempted you into its bed, the powerful eternal beast one might become. The beautiful dead, la belle mort."

What's

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great about Holly Black's new addition to the vast pool of vampire fiction is the fact that it blends old-school elements of vampire mythology with a whole new twist on their existence. The central thing to get to grips with in this novel is the idea of 'going Cold'. When a vampire bites a human in Black's world, their body temperature quickly drops and within two days they develop a fierce and irresistible craving for human blood. With their first taste, they will die and rise again as a vampire. Their only hope of living on 'normally' is to quarantine themselves for eighty-eight days until the infection has left their body. Understandably, very few people manage to withstand this torture. Protagonist Tana's infected mother attacked her, still a small child, in a frenzy of blood lust, and had to be killed by her father. Their family has never really recovered.

So, that's where we begin. Tana is now in her late teens, and has woken up at a 'sundown party' to find herself surrounded by the corpses of her friends and schoolmates. Someone has made the fatal mistake of leaving a window ajar, allowing vampires to enter. So far, so I Am Legend. Wandering through the house in shock, she stumbles across her ex-boyfriend Aiden, tied to a bed and obviously bitten, and a rather attractive young vampire, Gavriel, mysteriously chained up on the floor. As the undead perpetrators of the carnage creep closer, Tana makes the snap decision to save Aiden AND the vampire, narrowly escaping out the window, bundling them into her car and heading for Coldtown, a walled party prison-city for vampires, infected humans and all the gothic hangers-on who hope to one day win favour and be made immortal. Of course, with a Cold ex and a half-crazy vampire for company, nothing's going to be simple, on either side of the Coldtown wall. This is the story of Tana's self-discovery, of Aiden's transformation, of Tana and Gavriel's mutual attraction, of Gavriel's past and of Coldtown's secrets. It's complex and intriguing and exciting, and I loved it.

Part of what makes it so good is the mixture of brilliant influences and interesting reference points. I thought Gavriel was pure Anne Rice, an old-fashioned seductive, black-haired, slightly mad vampire who holds a delicious attraction for Tana. Lucien, the bad boy of the piece, was a bit like Caius from The Twilight Saga in my head - young, blonde, arrogant - with more than a touch of Lestat in him too. The hangers-on and rather pathetic wannabe-immortals reminded me of the fang bangers in the True Blood series, the ones who just wanted to be around vampires because OMG IMMORTAL. The city itself was a tad Warm Bodies-in-reverse, a prison to keep vampires out of the way, a lawless place where parties go on all night and every debauched whim is catered for. And each chapter is garnished with a literary quote relating to death or immortality. It's very elegantly done.

The constant social media theme was also quite interesting, bringing the novel right up to date. Live feeds coming from inside Coldtown - Lucien's famous party feed is one of the most popular - are eagerly followed by schoolgirls on the outside (including Tana's sister Pearl). People have posters of their favourite personalities from television, whether vampire or bounty hunter. People blog and vlog from inside the walls, and there are huge communities of wannabes whose sole aim is to get into Coldtown, meet up with friends inside, and transform into their 'true selves'. Tana, Aiden and Gavriel fall in with two of these - siblings Midnight and Winter - near the walls of Coldtown, and their obsession with documenting everything via social media is a bit sickening. The 'too much information' thing at work, even in the most inappropriate of situations...

Soooo, yes! I really enjoyed the book. It was beautifully written and very immersive, so that after a while I think I even dreamed about Coldtown once or twice! Always the sign of a good book. The attraction between Byronic Gavriel and Katniss-esque Tana was the right balance of seductive and pithy, dangerous and tender, as the best vampire romances always are, and there were a couple of twists that I didn't see coming until they hit, which again, is always a good sign for me. I'll definitely be checking out more from Holly Black at some point, and highly recommend this one for anyone who likes their vampire novels well written and with a clever dose of fresh lore to... um... sink their teeth into.

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So maybe it's not fair, but when I hear “vampires” around the realm of YA fiction, my initial reaction is not to jump in and give it a try. Like, I know it's not fair – my favorite TV series ever is Buffy, and that wasn't light on the vampires or the YA – but it happens. And so I put off

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reading this book, even though I'd heard some pretty positive things about it, because, well, vampires. But then I got through the Darkest Part of the Forest, and the Curse Workers Trilogy, and I wanted some more Holly Black, and, well. Here we are!

And I'm really glad I tried it, because man, this book actually worked really well for me. So here we have a world where there are vampires, and very publicly so: from within the government-established vampire/vampire-hangers-on safe zones called Coldtowns, media-savvy and internet-enabled vampires send out alluring images into the rest of the world of all the parties and debauchery taking place within. It can seem glamorous to a lot of people.

But not so much to our main character, Tana - she's not really enamored with vampires, particularly when she wakes up in the bathroom in the morning following a house party that turned into a blood-sucking massacre. All that's left alive in the house are her ex-boyfriend Aidan, and a vampire chained to the bed, Gavriel. And the vampires who did this? They're probably still in the house. AND Aidan isn't actually okay; he's been bitten, and left to go cold.

Yes, of course the vampires here don't have to work the same way as vampires elsewhere, so here's how they do here: if you get bitten, then you have the vampire virus in your veins; after a short incubation period, you start craving blood, but you're not a vampire yet. No, you have to actually taste some blood for that. If you do, congratulations, you get to die and become a vampire for real! if you don't, your bloodlust will get worse and worse, but after months of waiting with it, you will pass it from your system and return to normal. A mechanism with much potential for tension, and it works well for the book.

So Tana ends up having to try getting everyone to safety, and she takes the vampire, too - and here, safety means to Coldtown, where at least if they have vampires about, they won't hurt any more random people. First they have to get there, though.

I don't want to go into more plot details here, but I will say I was generally quite satisfied with it - there are some pretty horrifying turns, but they're earned, and the story's really quite well thought and written out. I definitely churned through the book quickly, which is a real testament, because there were parts that were uncomfortably gory to read, too.

But it's not just the plot that really works - there are some very real, complex characters in this book, that play off each other well. Tana's view of herself, and Aidan and other people's views of her, have a real tension to them - Tana makes herself do things she might not otherwise want to or feel comfortable with because she doesn't want people to define her boundaries, almost defensively. And other people view this (particularly Aidan) as bravery. And there's similar sorts of character points, too. I also liked Aidan a bunch - the cockiness, the degrees of caring and daring, the shading over into hunger and impatience. And Gavriel and other characters (like a pair of twins who really, probably, likely want to be vampires, maybe) also come through well.

Beyond which... I love the way Black handles representation. I love that it's so little remarked upon when various racial or LGBTQ people saunter through the story just being people. Aidan is actually probably the best-realized bisexual character I've ever read in anything, and there's a trans character who really works and where again, it's just treated as part of a personal story.

Minuses? Well, I do feel like the main villain could have used a bit more time and build-up as an actual character than they got. Gavriel is probably not quite as solid to me as the other characters, which may be slightly on purpose? And there's some world-building stuff I'd have loved to see more of, but it was full enough and long enough that I can't really ding it much for that.

All told, this is a really good book that does a lot of things with a fairly high degree of difficulty well, and even if I wouldn't start with this book if you haven't read any Black (*cough Darkest Part of the Forest *cough*), it's also a good standalone story, and I give it quite the high recommendation.

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Vampires. I have a love/hate relationship with them. Once upon a time I enjoyed Anne Rice's sexy, brooding, glamorous vampires. I loved Matt Haig's suburban vamps in The Radleys; his portrayal of an abstaining vampire family and their struggles to fit into the vanilla world of everyday life was a

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funny and incisive take on contemporary society. And I like the feral vampiric creatures of Justin Cronin's The Passage. I even kind of like the vampires that Sookie Stackhouse plays with in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series (and I really like Sookie, who's a tough little cookie). But Stephenie Meyer's glittery Twilight vampires and the vapid Bella, she of the ever-dimishing returns, pretty much ruined them for me.

I'm happy to report that Holly Black, in her latest novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, has restored the allure of the vampire for me. It opens with a bang--blood, death, white-knuckled heart-racing terror--as 17-year-old Tana Bach awakens cotton-mouthed, muzzy-headed, and hungover in a bathtub. As the previous night's sundown party--that's a party that goes into lockdown at sunset, because of the curfew...and the vampires, doncha know--comes back to her, she's somewhat relieved. At least she's still wearing her clothes, and she's pretty sure she didn't do anything, besides playing a stupid drinking game, to regret.

'Tis a pity, then, that the morning's dead silence is quickly shattered by--the silence of the dead. That's right, the dead, who were once Tana's friends and are now strewn about the floor in pools of their own blood, crumpled among their own entrails, room after room full of the dead. But as it turns out Tana isn't the last living person at the party; she stumbles into a darkened bedroom (opaque garbage bags duct-taped to the windows to keep the rising sun out) and discovers her ex-boyfriend, the very pretty, very charming, Aidan tied to the bed. Nearby, also trussed up, is a ruby-eyed vampire boy.

Things start happening very fast and Tana makes the decision that any honorable, brave, foolhardy person would: she races to save these two dangerous men--oh yes, Aidan's been bitten and all he needs is a good drink of human blood to complete the transformation to vampire. See, that's how it works. You get bit, you get the hunger, and you either feed and turn or sweat it out for eighty-eight days and get cured. During that time between infection and cure (or curse) one is said to be cold.

Which leads us to Coldtown. Coldtowns--for there are a number of them across the United States--are places where vampires and the infected and wannabes live in gloriously, glamorously, unabashed debauchery. If you're infected, death or Coldtown are your options. Either way, it's a life sentence.

Tana's journey involves getting from death scene to death scene--and what a glorious scene Coldtown is!-- with her passengers intact and her humanity unscathed. And, maybe, to kill a couple of vampires. And keep her little sister Pearl safe. Falling in love would be nice, too, although it's not even a blip on her radar for most of the story.

Holly Black has written an original, well-written, and only very occasionally angsty novel, which has all of the great vampire tropes--immense beauty and power, behavior that's at best amoral, at worst evil, and one of my favorites, aversion to sunlight--without being cliched. Tana is a great heroine: strong, loyal, persistent, honest, funny, and not at all enthralled by the idea of being subsumed by a man, be he human or vampire...which may be the most important quality of all in the heroine of a young adult novel.

A quick note on the audience for The Coldest Girl in Coldtown: the publisher classifies it for ages fifteen and up, and I concur. The overt violence is minimal (but present), but the descriptions of its aftermath--delicious though they may be--are often over-the-top and quite graphic. There's an awful lot of talk about kissing, but no actual sex, and the language is fairly tame. If your young reader is under fifteen, make sure she or he will be okay with the gross-out factor.

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This is a reasonably cute and diverting book, and a bit different from the usual vampire stories. That is, these vampires aren’t friendly or sexy; rather, on the whole they are blood-thirsty (literally), violent, and appropriately amoral denizens of The Dark Side.

Most of them live in places

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called Coldtowns. These are walled-in districts of cities that are home to all captured vampires and people who have been infected by them (or who wish to be infected by them): basically they are jails ruled by their inmates. The biggest Coldtown was also the first, and is in Springfield, Massachusetts. This is also the closest Coldtown to the heroine of this story, seventeen-year-old Tana Bach.

Tana and her ex-boyfriend Aidan Marinos are the only survivors of a vampire attack at a party outside of Coldtown that left forty-eight teens dead. But while Tana and Aidan are alive, they think they have gotten infected, and know that it might not be long until they too turn into vampires. [You can be cured if you can keep from drinking human blood until the infection is flushed out of your system, which can take up to 88 days. This act of self-restraint proves very difficult to do.] Tana survived by passing out in the bathtub behind the shower curtain before the attack. She finds Aidan bound and gagged, presumably to serve as future food for the captive vampire also in the room, a handsome teenage-looking boy named Gavriel. She helps both of them escape, and Gavriel asks her to drive them to Coldtown.

On the way, the three of them agree to take two vampire-wanna-be’s along also, a brother and sister who call themselves Winter and Midnight. They are also bloggers, who hope to be able to post videos for other wanna-be’s from the center of all the action.

Once in Coldtown, Winter and Midnight find that vampirism isn’t all romance; Tana and Aidan wait to see if they will turn; and Gavriel reveals his secrets. Tana also spends her time rescuing everyone else she can. But can she save herself?

Discussion: Throughout the book there are occasional ruminations about the essence of vampirism vis-a-vis humanity. Is vampirism a disease? Or does it just release the monsters that are inside us all? Is it, in other words, “humanity freed from the constraints of consequence and gifted with power”? It’s an interesting question even without actual vampires, because certainly there is plenty of rapacious behavior in so-called normal people that makes one wonder....

In terms of the characters, Tana is a mixed bag: she keeps being dumb about guys, but she’s incredibly brave and loyal and resourceful. Aidan is a jerk who Tana thinks is cute in his jerkiness; I wasn’t so convinced. Gavriel is portrayed as possibly insane, but I found him to be the smartest and most ethical (to the extent he could be) of the bunch, and I liked him very much.

The dialogue is a mixed bag too. At times (but not often) it is clumsy and drags, but there are also some very clever and funny moments. The world-building is very good too.

Finally, I keep wondering why the title of the book is The Coldest Girl in Coldtown instead of The Coolest Girl in Coldtown, which would make more sense.

Evaluation: This book is gory but not too dark, with moments of humor and a quite clever construction of mise-en-scène. The story dragged a bit in parts for me, but on the whole I found it entertaining.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this stand-alone (for now) novel that approaches the idea of vampires with fresh energy and clever ideas. Here, vampirism is treated like a virus, rather than something more akin to demonic possession, and the world has created "coldtowns" in which to quarantine those infected.

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Tana, our heroine, has had a near-miss with the virus before, but when she is a teenager she has the extraordinary bad luck to come face to face with the full horror of it and as a result travels to the nearest coldtown. Once inside, as you might guess, terrible adventures ensue.

While some moments of the novel feel overly convenient -- like a certain cache of weapons under a bed -- for the most part this story feels inventive and engaging, with solidly cinematic pacing. Tana's personality fluctuates in interesting ways, but at the same time she is relatable -- her context makes the reader understand even those parts of her motivation that are left unstated. The people she encounters inside Coldtown are intriguing, sometimes in uncomfortably creepy ways.

And the creep factor is high here. For those who associate Black with the younger fairy stories of the Spiderwick era -- this is not that kind of story. Blood abounds here -- it doesn't just splatter, but also spurts, cascades, soaks, pools, and gushes. That might seem obvious in a vampire novel, but seriously -- no punches pulled on the descriptions in this novel. Strangely enough, little seems gratuitous, even with the volume of gore-tastic detail, because part of the point of the novel is the brutality of the virus and its vampire, as well the casual cruelty of the bystander. We are all made bystanders here, through the novel's cheerful indictment of current media culture and YA-typical attitude toward social norms.

In short, this is a YA vampire novel that will engage even those who think they've read it all in that genre, with some typical flaws at the start but a love-hate ending that will either delight you or drive you to unresolved despair. For me, the last note was perfect. And I don't even really like vampire novels.

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Tana is one of those teens who don't think too much about their futures because their pasts are so disturbing to them. In a world where vampires exist, and have now been cordoned off into Coldtowns to try to contain the infection, she believes she has nothing to lose.

That's because her mother was

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infected by a vampire when Tana was little. Her father didn't follow the law but tried to do the right thing. He locked Mom in the basement to see if she would be able to fight off the infection, and the overwhelming urge for blood. Mom talked Tana into unlocking the basement door and coming downstairs. Dad chopped off Mom's head before she could do more than scrape Tana's arm.

But that's backstory. When we first meet Tana, she's waking up at a nihilistic teen party where drinking and sex are the norm. Her ex-boyfriend, Adrian, tried to capture her attention yet again. He's tied up on a bed with a vampire chained in the room. Everyone else has been killed.

After Tana gets them out alive, before other vampires behind the door can get to them, they have little choice. They have to get to the nearest Coldtown. That's where vampires, those who are Cold -- have been infected but may or may not turn vampire -- and thrillseekers go. Tana will never see her still grieving, still heavy drinking father or younger sister again.

The vampire chained in the room with Adrian is a famous old vampire and stone-cold assassin. He and Tana are, of course, drawn to each other. But Gavriel, the second son of minor Russian aristocracy, has a great backstory as well.

With the level of violence and sex, this is easily an older teen book. It also is a very well-written horror novel of characters who feel they have nothing to lose, with the themes of betrayal and trying to do the right thing regardless of the circumstances.

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Not five stars because it's the best book ever. Five stars because I am completely enchanted with its tough-as-leather heroine.

Tana Bach awakens in the bathroom of a friend's cabin, sincerely regretting her excesses of the night before. She is hungover and feeling awful, but not as awful as she is

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about to feel. When she staggers out of the bathroom, she finds all her friends are still at the party...but also, they are all dead. The only survivors of what appears to be a bloody vampire feast are her annoying ex-boyfriend, Aidan, and a very hungry-looking boy with red eyes: a vampire. Aidan and the vampire are both tied up, and they both present a deadly danger to Tana: Aidan has been bitten by a vampire, which is turning him Cold and giving him an unquenchable thirst for human blood; if he gets his fix, however, he will die and be resurrected as a vampire. Gavriel, the vampire, is injured and hungry and apparently being hunted by vampires who are still on the premises, sleeping off their feast. Tana should get out, and get out fast. But Tana is not that girl.

And this is why I love Tana: she is brave in a very specific sort of way. She is not reckless and dauntless; she's just more aware than most people are. As the story continues, the reader learns Tana's history: as a child, she was the proximate cause of her beloved mother's death, and she only survived herself because someone else did the right thing, despite its enormous personal cost. Tana is only seventeen, but she knows something that many people never learn: that dying is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Sometimes living with the consequences is much, much worse.

Which is why Tana is THIS girl, instead: "No one else was going to get killed today, not if she could save them. Certainly not someone she'd once thought she loved, even if he was a jerk. [note: He WAS a jerk. Tana is not wrong. Tana is an excellent judge of character.] Not some dead boy full of good advice. And she hoped not herself, either."

This is Tana all the way through. Yes, she cares about these people: Aidan, Gavriel, her little sister Pearl, the people she meets in Coldtown (which, by the way, is the designation for quarantined cities inhabited by humans infected by vampires, and by vampires themselves - scene of endless parties and 24-hour reality TV). But she doesn't delude herself. Her dogged courage is not simply on their behalf: Tana just refuses to be a part of another loved one's death, no matter how inevitable that death seems. Tana has a cold eye for the risks and benefits of her actions.

I enjoyed this book enormously, despite some minor flaws and the initial slow pace. (Also, the blood. I don't really read vampire novels because ALL THAT BLOOD.) I think what I really got a kick out of was how the characters stayed themselves: Aidan , for example, is always 100% Aidan, no matter what happens to him, always half jerk and half charming, irresponsible teenager. I liked Midnight and Winter, twins who are simply itching to become part of the decadent mess that is Coldtown; I liked the (too-brief) backstories on Lucien and Elisabet, the reigning consorts of Coldtown.

And here's another thing I REALLY liked. You should know that I am a person who loves knowing the meanings of names, so I looked up the names of the main characters. Gavriel is Russian for Gabriel, which is delightful because his opposite number is named Lucien - do I even need to explain that one? Aidan, the boy who is going Cold, has a name which translates as "Little Fire." And Tana's own name derives from Tatiana, or Titania - the ruthless Faerie Queen, in her own way the Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black is a standalone horror set in a world where vampires have infected a sizable chunk of the population and in the United States, walled cities have been set up as permanent quarantines. Into this mix we have Tana who wakes up after a bender of a party to

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find she's one of a very small number of survivors after vampires crashed the party and went on a killing spree. Fearing she's probably been infected and will turn cold (a step in the direction full-on vampirism) she sets out for the nearest coldtown, with a vampire as her bounty.

Here's where I'm torn and disappointed. The mechanism for how vampirism works was a unique twist. Rather than just being demonic possession type thing that results in an undying hunger for human blood, it's more of a virus that's gotten out of hand. Yes, the virus did originally come from vampires, but the transformation process is less instant and more painful. Also, the world building is noteworthy — entire areas being walled off with checkpoints and only the slimmest chance of escape. These are ghettos for eternity, for those who have turned, and death sentences for those who don't.

But then there's the temptation to have le sexy vampire and making him something epic, mythic, rebellious, and dangerous. Oh fuck, it's another Lestat. Why oh why did The Coldest Girl in Coldtown have to waste pages and pages and pages on le sob story of Gavriel's back story. I wasn't reading it for him. I don't care how important he is to the whole damn vampire experience; Tara should have staked him immediately so the story could get back to the interesting stuff.

Except, I should have seen it coming, because even early on before Gavriel derailed the plot, it seemed hung up on bizarre and inane details. During the drive to the coldtown, there's about a dozen references to Tara driving a black Crown Victoria. It's a detail that's screaming to be a Chekhov's gun, except that once we get to the coldtown, the car is abandoned. Potential call backs are wasted in lieu of Buffy and Angel fanfic. Barf.

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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black is the young adult vampire story that everyone should have been reading instead of that one that shall not be named where vampires brood and shimmer and stalk high schools like sick pedophiles.

In the world that Tana lives in there are vampires. Real live

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creatures of the night hunt and drink the blood of humans. The vampires have been quarantined to cities that are called Coldtowns. Places where the undead and living co-exist. Only sometimes they escape from these places and infect others, like Tana's mother. Who she had to watch be beheaded by her father before she could feed on her own children.

Tana wakes up one morning after a long night of partying. The house she is in is eerily quiet. She is terribly hungover and can't even remember what or who she was with the night before. Wandering down the stairs she is greeted by a massacre of dead and torn apart teenage bodies. She knows immediately what has happened, rushing back up the stairs she finds the boy she came to the party with, Aidan. It is obvious he has been bitten, but even stranger is the creature chained close by. The young boy/man Gavriel. A vampire. As voices sound in the hallway Tana knows she only has moments to decide what to do and she cannot do it without the vampire Gavriel's help. The three flee but not before Tana is bitten and infected. She has no choice, to protect those she loves she must leave and wait out the infection. To make sure she doesn't turn. She must go to Coldtown.

But the vampires in Coldtown are not as glamourous as they appear on the internet feeds and soon, Tana learns the dark, evil truth behind the undead. Will she survive long enough to make it out of Coldtown?

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is as dark and tragic as any vampire story ever told. It has the lure and romance of a Dracula novel but updated with the materialistic and want it now of today's youth. The young people flock to the Coldtown's, believing that the lives or deaths that the vampires offer is far better than what they are living in now. But like so much that is offered on the internet, it is a lie.

Coldtown is bloody. It is visceral. Tana is far from the perfect little girl. She carries so much baggage and guilt over her mother's death that you wonder if her journey into Coldtown is a death wish of sorts. The arrogance and self centered petulance of Aidan makes you wish someone would stake him already and get it over with. Tana opening her eyes to how Aidan truly is, is a moment of growth for her that gives one hope.

There is blood, some sex and some romance, but mostly there is a lot of blood and the vampires are vampires. Not some neutered hybrid for a sad little romance novel. No these are vampires. Rip off your head and drink the geyser of blood shooting out like a grade school water fountain. This is a Sookie Stackhouse vampire without the pages and pages of sex. Not that I mind but Holly Black pulls this off wonderfully.

The character of Gavriel is awesome. A Stephen King and Anne Rice lovechild that no one ever told us about.

If you love vampires, real vampires. Dracula, 'Salem's Lot, Bill Compton and Dark Shadows...Armand not Lestat. Lestat's a bitch. Then you will love Tana and Gavriel and Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

A very good read!

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Liked it more than I thought I would.

I got a copy of this book to review through NetGalley(dot)com. I have really enjoyed Holly Black’s Spiderwick Chronicles and Modern Faerie Tale series so I was looking forward to her next young adult series. This was a very good young adult book that’s part dystopia/part vampire story.

In a

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world where vampirism is a highly contagious virus, vampires are put in Coldtowns to protect the rest of humanity from them. This book follows a girl named Tana who wakes up at a party and finds all of her friends slaughtered. She finds her boyfriend infected (going Cold) and doesn't know if she herself is infected or not. She also finds a somewhat crazed and strangely kind vampire chained up in the room with her boyfriend. This all leads Tana to take a desperate trip to the closest Coldtown and their she finds that Coldtowns aren't anything like publicity would lead normal humans to believe.

You can't help but compare this book a bit to Julie Kagawa's Blood of Eden series. Humanity is a lot better off in this book, this book portrays a world that looks like it is on the way to becoming a world like the one portrayed in the Blood of Eden series. Vampires are not the good guys in this book, they are fairly vicious. Although some of them try to fit in with human society.

The situation in the Coldtowns definitely has a dystopian vibe to it. Everyone on the outside thinks that life in Coldtown is all parties and glitter, but once Tana gets in there she finds out it’s not like that at all.

The description throughout this book is fantastic, the scenes really come alive in all their gothic dreadfulness. There is some seriously wonderful description here and that made this a darkly lyrical read.

Tana is easy to engage with as a character; she is a good girl and tries to do what's right but is constantly fighting with a daring and darkness that she finds alluring. She is a bit of a wild child, but strangely pragmatic as well.

Gavriel is the strangely insane, yet kind, vampire that tries to befriend Tana. He was a wonderful character full of vampiric creepiness as well as a strange humanity. He has some seriously interesting secrets and I really enjoyed reading about him.

The world is a bleak one without much hope and Tana is forced to find a way to survive in it. There are some very violent and gory scenes in here as well; as I said it is similar in tone to Kagawa’s Blood of Eden series...just a little less bleak.

They plot was a bit predictable. I pretty much figured out Gavriel’s secret right when we meet him. That being said there are still a couple good twists and turns. The book was very engaging and hard to put down.

Overall I enjoyed the story, it was a good one. The story is nicely wrapped up, although there could be another book after this one because there are some loose ends. The world is an interesting one, the description throughout is spectacular, and the characters are engaging. I would recommend to those who enjoy dystopian vampire type stories. I would especially recommend to those who have enjoyed Kagawa’s Blood of Eden series since the subject matter and tone are similar.

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The Coldest Girl In ColdTown
by
Holly Black

My"in a nutshell" summary...

Tana wants to go to ColdTown with a vampire, a potential vampire and some bloggers!

My thoughts after reading this book...and I know I am all over the place with this...

This is a book with really unique characters. When one lone

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girl...Tana...makes a choice to save her friend Aiden and a vampire she has never met before...wow...this causes a tumble down a rabbit hole of fear and gore and growth and amazing things.

This is a world where vampires are kind of attractive and are able to fool people into thinking that being a vampire leads to a glamorous life. Unfortunately vampires have to live in ColdTown and once you are in ColdTown...you almost never get out. This is where Tana is headed. And...she is headed there for a number of reasons...some profound...some honorable but ultimately really foolhardy and life altering.

Whew!

She also has a history where her mother turned cold and nearly killed her...so in some ways she is really "messed" up!

My thoughts after reading this book...

Holly Black has a way of making me feel as though I was actually in ColdTown. Survival is so precarious there...just trying to exist without ever having to eat a rat...OMG...it's the place where nightmares are born and live and never leave!
It was so scary but I loved it!

What I loved about this book...

Aside from being freaked out by ColdTown and what you have to do to survive...it's like the Dystopian Vampire World from hell...people walking around with shunts in their arms so Vampires can feed easily...horrible scarce food...and death everywhere...I rather loved ColdTown. But if ever there was a vampire to die for other than Edward...OMG...it's Gavriel...I loved his relationship with Tana...simply beautiful...in a ghastly sort of way.

Tana was magnificent...noble, loyal, and brave. The girl in the book trailer does not do Tana justice...she needs to be much more fierce and amazing!

What I did not love...

The gory side effect of vampire books...gore and blood...sheesh...this book has a ton of it...
I could see it everywhere. I could almost smell the metallic smell...ick!

Final thoughts...

Readers who are looking for a different kind of book...with awesome good and evil characters...will eat this book up! It's magnificent!

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Absolutely the best fantasy book I've read this year! Nobody writes about vampires like Holly Black! I mean, who else could get the reader to feel empathy for a group of blood thirsty demons? Don't get me wrong, there's lots of blood and guts, but a lot of yum too:)

Given her propensity for the darker aspects of life, it was just a matter of time before Holly Black tackled vampires. In The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, she does just that and does it with style. Her vampires are every bit as evil and dangerous as one would wish, and yet she maintains a semblance of

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humanity within her vamps that adds a layer of complexity to the story and prevents them from being mindless predators. It is a deliciously chilling, intense story that solidifies Ms. Black’s reputation as a fantastic writer of fantasy.

Within Coldtown, there are clearly the good guys and the bad guys, and there is no doubt that the vampires fall into the latter category. Yet, Ms. Black makes them intriguing and even sympathetic. As a reader experiences Tana’s worries of becoming infected, with the complete absence of choice and total reliance upon the instinct for blood, it is easy to step into her shoes and feel her fears. There is nothing sexy about turning, and the lack of control regarding becoming infected and eventually turning make becoming Cold something pitiful and indeed tragic. They may be pitiless monsters, but the fact that they started out as feeling humans and had no part in deciding to turn returns some of their lost humanity to them.

The story itself is action-packed but well-paced. Nothing is rushed in an attempt to increase the suspense. Rather, Ms. Black balances action with world-building, adding enough character development and imagery to create this world filled with Coldtowns without losing the tension. In fact, from the moment Tana wakes up in the bathtub and discovers the terror around her, unease builds slowly but steadily, increasing in intensity as Tana makes life-altering decisions and faces her worst nightmares. Tana herself is the type of heroine it is easy to like. Damaged and fragile but with a steely determination that befits a survivor, following along as she faces her future is an additional pleasure. The ambiguity of the ending is less annoying than one might think, as it is surprisingly realistic in spite of involving vampires. Overall, the story is one that grabs a reader’s attention and never really lets go until its breathtaking conclusion.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Ms. Black’s version of a vampire story is every bit as dark and conflicted as one would expect with nary a sparkly vampire in sight. She masterfully creates drama and tension beyond typical YA fare and touches on the timeless topics of revenge, loyalty, friendship, and love. This horror/coming-of-age story is an excellent reboot of the vampire subgenre and a welcome addition to her already stellar body of work.

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Holly Black's entry into the crowded vampire fiction genre really stands out for me. From the shocking beginning with Tana waking up in a house full of her dead friends to the hopeful conclusion, I was swept into the world Black created.

Tana Bach is a somewhat normal seventeen-year-old in a world

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that has changed immensely during her lifetime. Vampires, who had always existed in secret, are now public. Anyone bitten by a vampire catches the infection and goes cold and begins craving blood. But, if they can survive 88 days without tasting human blood, the infection goes away and they are human. Vampires and those who have been infected along with a variety of humans who were already there have been sequestered in coldtowns. Springfield, Massachusetts, is one of the first of them and is the nearest to Tana's home.

This is also an age of social media and the vampires are quick to use it. One very famous live feed comes from Lucien Moreau's home in Coldtown. It lets people on the outside watch what the vampires want them to see. The feeds play on people's desire to live forever. There are many people who really want to become vampires and who travel to the Coldtowns in the hopes of being turned.

When Tana wakes up in the house where most of her friends died, she finds her ex-boyfriend Aidan infected and tied to a bed and near him she also finds an vampire wrapped in chains. She is determined to free both of them and flee before the vampires who created the blood bath wake and finish them off. The three of them are on their way to the nearest Coldtown. Tana is scratched by a vampire in their escape and she is afraid that she has been infected. Aidan is already going cold and craving blood. The vampire is Gavriel who is a very intriguing character. He has spent the last ten years being tortured for not killing the vampire who was responsible for bringing the vampires into the public eye and who infected countless humans. He is sort of insane and knows it. Tana is fascinated by him even though she knows he might be the most dangerous thing that she has ever known.

The story was amazing and intriguing and filled with realistically drawn characters and all sorts of moral dilemmas. While it isn't for younger young adults because of the the graphic violence, I think older young adults will be as enthralled as I was by the world Black has created. I highly recommend it.

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I'm not going to lie, I was a little concerned going into The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. I've been mildly burnt out on YA recently, with many of the current reads seeming vaguely formulaic. The biggest thing that constantly bugged me was the inevitable love triangle between the heroine and the two

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(predictably) hot guys, one being the friend who may or may not be already involved with the heroine, and then the "bad" guy, who may or may not actually be bad, but is clearly out of the heroine's comfort zone. A fellow reader told me that Coldest Girl was not like that, yet when the book opens with our heroine, Tana, waking up after a party to find everyone in the house dead with the exception of her ex-boyfriend and another vampire, I immediately thought, "Sigh. Another love triangle. And so soon!" I trust my friend, though, so I persevered and continued on without setting the book down after the first couple of chapters, and I'm not disappointed I did.

Black constructs some nice world building around her vampires and what it takes to infect a person and turn them into a vampire. Instead of an instantaneous transformation, humans can come down with an infection, known as going Cold, and it is possible to fight off the infection and not turn. Yet, if an infected human drinks human blood, then they will turn into a vampire. In order to quarantine both those infected and turned, certain cities across the country are walled off (known then as Coldtowns) and those inside try to get by as best they can. Like most of Black's stories, this isn't a fairytale world. These Coldtowns are dirty, grungy, dangerous places with their own sense of glamour and beauty.

Tana proves to be a strong protagonist throughout, not generally needing help from others. This was refreshing, as is the fact that this is a stand alone story. Black seems to have intentionally tried to downplay anything that makes for a "typical" YA paranormal story these days: Trilogies. Strong, but not strong, female protagonists. The love triangle. All of these things are almost there, but she pulls back before toppling too far into that territory, and for that I'm thankful.

Black's writing again leaves me in a love/hate relationship. Her writing is solid and clear, yet it always leaves me wanting. I'm never quite sure what I want, but it always seems that whatever that "thing" is that will push me over the edge to simply loving her writing is always just out of reach for me. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is really good storytelling, and fans of her work shouldn't be disappointed and should be a good introduction for those not familiar with her work.

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Holly Black’s latest novel is an entertaining addition to the vampire novel genre with a compelling heroine and, while not a subversion of tropes, displays the horror of vampires beyond the romantic idealization that is the norm these days. It owes a debt to vampire novels that have come before

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but adds many interesting elements to vampire lore to not be dismissed as simply derivative. There’s a tall dark and handsome vampire love interest with an angst-filled back story and the villain is melodramatic, but the interesting part is the Coldtown itself and the way its citizens make use of social media and televised live feeds to glamorize undeath and lure in lonely teens to feed upon.

The main character, Tana, is interesting: defined by the trauma of her mother succumbing to vampire infection, her ambivalence towards turning “cold” and her risk taking behaviors make psychological sense; there are reasons why she is drawn to someone who is clearly dangerous (unlike another heroine *insert obligatory Twilight reference). She has agency and it is her struggle to survive with her humanity intact that drives the plot. Gavriel the vampire is not afforded the same level of depth but he too has his reasons for an interest in a teenager and his personality made for an entertaining character. The chemistry he has with Tana is sizzling. His backstory with the villain Lestat- excuse me I mean Lucien, was too Anne Rice-like to be interesting to someone who has read the Vampire Chronicles. Luckily it’s only a couple of chapters: this is Tana’s story.

As far as supporting characters go the standouts are Tana’s self-centered ex boyfriend Aiden; Midnight and Winter, two bloggers lured to Coldtown by the promise of a new exciting existence; Tana’s little sister Pearl; and Valentina, a trans woman working in the Coldtown thrift shop. Lucien the aforementioned Big Bad is amusing in a campy way. He makes statements like: “Some sicknesses are worse than their cure” and “Every hero is the villain of their own story” to demonstrate he is profoundly full of nonsense.

The inclusion of the blogger characters and the way the vampires capitalize on the Coldtown with various reality TV shows (or “Eternal Balls”) is an interesting idea and makes this the timely vampire novel for Millennials. The way people, particularly dissatisfied teens, are drawn in to horrors they are not prepared for via social media makes for chilling drama and world building. The details of the vampire infection and detox period adds dimension. Though the prose occasionally skids into purple territory and some plot beats are familiar, overall The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a worthwhile and entertaining read that I would recommend to any vampire fan.

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Imagine going to a party, and waking up the next morning in a bathtub with no recollection of how you got there. When you stumble out to the rest of the house, you discover everyone else at the party was killed during the night. A window was left open during the party, letting in the killer. Who

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just happens to be vampires. That is just what happens to Tana one morning, changing her whole life.

Through a series of events, Tana, her ex-boyfriend Aidan, Winter and Midnight (two young adults they meet at a rest area), and a vampire named Gavriel flee to their local Coldtown. Not all cities have them, but they do have one close by. There are five major Coldtowns across the country - they are a section of town that was walled off to keep vampires and infected people sequestered, to prevent a further spread of vampirism. Coldtowns are like a glamorous wild party/reality show, with live feeds, live cams, ad streaming video, which those outside the Coldtowns can watch what is happening behind the walls. But Coldtowns are also extremely dangerous, which can't be forgotten.

Tana is the perfect heroine - she was awesome! She is flawed, makes bad choices sometimes just because she wants to, but is brave, loyal, courageous and tough. She is not weak, and does not always wait to be rescued. Gavriel is a perfect Byronic hero and love interest, and Tana does not get her head turned by a handsome face - she does not romanticize the idea of vampires, instead knows them to be the monsters that they are. Although Tana and Gavriel do get a little steamy...

The vampires in this story are not mamby pamby vampires who glitter and forgo drinking blood. They are dangerous, with red eyes, who do drink the blood of people, and will even kill them. Reading this book though, I was more freaked out by the scary wannabes, those people who saw the vampires as eternally young, who never die, no more birthdays. They have no limits to as how far they will go to get what they want, which is eternal life. Isn't this always true though - that zealots can be the craziest people in the room?

I loved this book! I read it all in one sitting, I just didn't want to stop reading it. Black created a world that was different from other vampire books, with an awesome heroine. It was complex, I just grazed the surface of this story. I feel like we didn't quite get enough closure at the end of this book, and I am really hoping that this signifies another book in the series to come!

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Okay, this here book does the right thing by vampires. These vamps aren’t hiding out and away from the human world, oh no–they’re running it. When people are bitten, they turn Cold, and if they drink a human’s blood within eighty-eight days then the infection turns them into a vampire.

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Video feeds within Coldtowns show these walled cities within cities to be places where vamps and infected and even humans all live harmoniously in some high profile, glamorous lifestyle. But when Tana, her infected ex-boyfriend and a mysterious stranger all find themselves running and are faced with entering Coldtown as their only option, they’ll find out that things–and people–aren’t always as they seem. Dark, tense, and endlessly entertaining, this is a vampire story unlike any other I’ve read. I LOVE that the vamps are out there in the open and owning it, tempting humans into really wanting (not fearing) a lifestyle of the undead. Original and twisted, I give it a 4.75/5 stars ;)

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Since this book was getting such rave reviews, I thought I give it try. Being that I was done with paranormal, I was hoping that this book would be different. It is different. But for me, it still carried that same feel to a vampire book.

Plot: I think my biggest problem of the book didn’t really

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capture me. The plot is about a girl, who is living in a time of vampire. They can turn people but you can also go cold. Which means you get a vampire sickness but after a few month of no blood and isolation, you can turn back to human. This plot goes from her childhood to her now, in which she faces some hard times. Honestly, I felt like this plot has no umph. It just was.

Love: Now, the love interest captured me more than the plot. This story is also told in different point of view and one pov the reader gets is the vampire. Now he lead and now leads an interesting life. I love going back in time and seeing how he can to be. I also like, even though it move fast, his love with Tana. That was quite unexpected with moments that this steal your breathe away. *Fans self*

Ending: I felt the ending was fitting. It did go in the direction I expected it to be. And I like how well elements came together in the end.

This is a good book. It is different from many vampire stories but it does carry some similarity. The Coldest Girl In Coldtown carries much potential with lots of action. It follows are great narrative that any reader can get into. The Coldest Girl In Coldtown is great.

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I was on the fence about reading this book but I'm glad I did. This review is for the audio version which has an excellent voice performance. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is the AntiTwilight. Whereas, Twilight shows mostly the glamour and upside of being turned,this book keeps it real. Sure, bring

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a vampire has its privileges but there is a dark and seedy side as well. I also love that Tana, the main character, is so bad ass. She is brave and fierce, there are times when she is scared but she powers through. This is a must read, descriptive, well written with an exciting plot. 4 stars

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This isn't a bad book but I was glad it was not a series about halfway through the book. I think it would end up suffering the same fate Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires series did.
My main issue with this book is the theme that if vampires/supes are known to the masses that the millions of

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pathetic throw away their lives to obtain immortality. It is overly done that I find that concept boring. Cue nightclub scene where hordes of runaways line up to get into the club the heroine has access to.
The book had better backstory to it than what actually happened. I liked the story with Tana and her family. I suspect her mother wanted to be a vampire and her dad just didn't care about his kids.

I didn't feel claustrophobic as I usually would reading about prison but I could not find the lifestyle glamorous. I'm not sure if the book wanted to have it both ways there. Was this a horror story or was it a cooler alternative world meant to appeal to its readers? The coldtown reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere where everyone lived off trading commodities.
It was obviously an apartheid/containment state for vampires, victims and the dredges of societies. I found the whole concept horrifying and warped that girls like Winter idolised living like that. I think if the concept of Catherine Fisher's Incarceron could be melded with this book we might get something more interesting.
Incarceron made the mistake of letting us see the outside world which lost the mystery of what was outside. On the other hand the world was brutual and nothing came easy for the characters. The stakes were quite high.
This book was just too easy. Tana made friends and never struggled much once inside. She did worry she was bitten but the book might have been scarier had she been locked in against her will. Even when her get out of jail free card was taken there was no sense she was stuck.

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Hm.

Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmm.

Ok, I have mixed feelings about this book. I was originally recommended it by a friend when I told her I was looking for something scary to read for Halloween (re: it's not scary). I knew nothing going into the book other than the main character would wake up after a party and be

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the only one left alive. I imagined it would be about monsters or spells or ghosts or a haunted house or even zombies. I did not, in any way, expect

wait for it

vampires.

Yup, you heard me, I just read a YA book about vampires.

Ok, so let's break it down.

The pros:

This is not a Twilight-esque book. I find this a very good thing. Vampires are still glorified, but it's not the book that glorifies them but rather the characters, and both the book and the main character acknowledge this. The vampires aren't Stoker vampires. They're not even up to Stephen King's caliber. But it's nice to step away from mainstream idolization of them and read a book that pits that idolization against the reality.

An out bisexual male main character. This means so much to me, I can't even say. First, bisexuality isn't really in a lot of media and when it is, it's almost always relegated to a female or to a side character without much face time. But Aiden is the ex-boyfriend of the main character, he's a main character, and his sexuality isn't treated as a joke. In fact, it's barely even mentioned. And that may sound weird, but I'm taking it as completely progressive. Tana says he used to like to make out in front of her, sometimes kissing guys and sometimes kissing girls. And Aiden says, at one point, he'd like to be the one kissing Gavriel, but that's really about it. It's remarkable to see male bisexuality treated with the same respect and normalcy as male and female heterosexuality.

Tana is a great character. She's a teenage girl in the rebellious stage of her adolescence. She's emotionally scarred by the death of her mother, but it's not something that defines her. She's not emo or perfect or super beautiful or anything. She's pretty normal, and she's interesting as is. And my favorite part about her? She stands alone as an independent character. Even though she's traveling with her ex, she never makes any mention of wanting to get back together. In fact, it's more the opposite. She's completely aware of how unhealthy their relationship was. And she's not out to seduce a vampire, or anyone else for that matter. She's terrified, she thinks she might be turning into a vampire, and more than anything, she wants to go back to her normal life and see her sister and her best friend, Pauline.

Modern technology and pop culture. I'm sorry, but I freaking loved the idea of vampires "making it big" by having their own reality tv shows, and vampire hunters becoming famous by doing the same thing. That is our society and let's face it, if vampires suddenly appeared, it would probably happen.

The cons:

Vampires. Ugh. Overdone as far as mythological creatures go. I'm all for the supernatural and urban fantasy and whatnot, but there's more to mythology than vampires, werewolves, and witches. Let's explore the mythology of other cultures. Asian mythology is fascinating. So is Egyptian (actually, let's just include African mythology in general). I've never studied it, but I wonder what type of mythology Arabic culture has. And let's not forget the treasure trove of Greek and Roman mythology. Vampires are getting boring, and we need to move on.

Some bits were cliched. The decadent vampire trope is getting old. The idea that vampires sit around in mansions throwing parties where stupid humans dress up in red carpet gowns and let themselves be used as blood donors is a has been idea. If we're going to limit ourselves to writing a vampire novel, let's do something interesting with the vampires at least. Maybe the whole "vampires turn into bats" thing comes from vampires actually being half bat half human, complete with bat wings and living in caves where they rarely come out (hence the aversion to sunlight) and really they don't care about humans at all? As in, they're more afraid of us than we are of them. Just, seriously, change it up!

The ending. Okay, fair warning, SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH!!! There is some romance in the novel, between the teenage Tana and the hundreds of years old vampire Gavriel. Sound familiar? Yeah. Ugh. I would have loved it if Gavriel would have just come to respect her as a strong woman because of everything she did. I don't understand why romance always has to enter the picture.

But, well, that's my review. The good and the bad of it. Overall, I liked the book. I won't buy it, probably won't read it again, but I enjoyed it and the story was good enough that it was easy to get sucked in. I recommend if you're just looking for an easy to read, escapism adventure.

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