The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Author: Holly Black
Goodreads Rating: 4.03
Pages: 432
Format: ARC from BEA13

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.

I wasn't originally planning on picking this book up. I couldn't quite get on board with the concept, but then I grabbed it at BEA after hearing a ton of great things about it. It was supposed to be really great, and once I started it I hated putting it down. Right away I was pulled into this strange world that Tana lived in.

Vampires have sort of fallen into the background after the Twilight craze calmed down. Slowly though, there are a few vampire books that are slowly creeping back into the market. For example, you've got The Blood of Eden Series by Julie Kagawa and now you have The Coldest Girl in Coldtown which does not romanticize vampires like Twilight did.

I love how dirty and nitty gritty it is with the vampires. There was this great world that Black obviously put a ton of effort into developing, between the way the infection spread and how the old world Vampires operated, there was so much thought put into this that I just want to dive back in and discover all the other nooks and crannies that I'm missing.

As great as the world building was, I felt that we didn't get to know Tana very well, we only really knew her in context of this horrible tragedy that she was party to. I felt that we really saw her as she went through her grief of what happened to her friends, that we really didn't get to see who Tana really was. Dispite that, I really loved her. She was fierce and loyal to her family and friends and it made me want to be best friends with her.

Through the whole book I felt like I was really in the dregs with Tana and Aidan and Gavriel. I didn't want to put the book down. I wanted to know what was going to happen next and who they were possibly going to meet. I truly adored this book, and I am so glad that I got to read it! Keep an eye out for when this book hits shelves this September!

The Courts Decision: