Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Vampires. Oooooooh. This is probably the only other vampire book I've read besides Cassandra Clare's shadowhunter books that feature vampires. It's also the first book I get to check off my 2015 challenge! 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Publication date: September 3, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Paperback
Source: Me (or more accurately, my sistah. THANK YOU, GORGEOUS)
Pages: 419


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.

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Technically, this is a review. Technically, this is supposed to be a rational post on the pros and cons of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

Technically.

But I'm not sure I have the words or capacity to form any thoughts that make much sense, because this book ROCKED.

Okay, okay. Okay.

First of all, Tana. Tana rocked. (To be honest, everything about this book rocked but just hear me out okay?)

You know those characters who think they're totally fine? Who think that they're really good people even though they're not? The ones who ignore their problems and pretend they don't exist? I don't like them. I don't like it when characters are fully one thing (good or bad) because most of the time it's not true.

Not everyone is completely bad. And everyone definitely isn't all good. We all have our mistakes, and our bright sides.

And I loved the way that Tana knew this. She embraced all of herself. She knew her faults, she knew that sometimes they weren't something she should be doing or thinking or feeling. Tana didn't have any delusions about who she was or about the world around her. Even if she did, when she discovered the truth, she didn't have them anymore.

Besides this fact, Tana was completely kick-butt.

She was afraid, but she did things anyway. Like saving people, saving vampires, protecting her sister. Confronting dangerous enemies. She didn't give up.

And something that really sucked me into totally being Tana's fan was that she wasn't always sure of herself, of who she was. She had warring parts of her personality. But she still did her best, tried her hardest. And found a way to deal with it.

There's this one quote I love so much that I bookmarked it, wrote it in my journal, and now I'm gonna share it with you.

"Laugh it up," she told him, "but the thing is, I hadn't known myself at all until I went away. I knew how Nicole and Amber saw me. And Lucien and the Spider and all the others-- they're afraid of you, so they figure you must be pretty awful indeed. They think you can't feel anything, because they've forgotten how. You're very, very dangerous, I get that, and you're prone to some very theatrical brooding, but don't let yourself mistake that for some kind of inner corruption. They see themselves in you and are blinded."

Is not that most beautiful thing ever?

I really identify with it because...that's kind of why I wanted to move away to college even though I was scared. I wanted to find myself, know myself, away from the setting I was comfortable in. Away from the people who knew me as a certain kind of person. I wanted to see who I was without anyone but myself and my expectations.

And DUDE Holly Black got that.

The writing was so beautiful throughout the book. The worldbuilding was amazing. I could see the Coldtown, I could smell it. The vampires' way of life was written so raw. Some parts it was pretty graphic, but there was never unnecessary scenes. The way that some humans wanted to be vampires and admired them from afar was a fresh idea (at least in the books I've read) and something I can definitely see happening. The characters were written beautifully, scarred but beautiful.

Oh, and the ex-boyfriend and mysterious boy from the blurb? To me, that just screams love triangle for any YA novel. But nope. Even though a tiny traitorous part of me wanted the author to explore the coupling of a certain two people, there was no love triangle. I'm SO glad there wasn't. I support the final pairing. It was meant to be.

The ending. Oh my gosh, the ending. It was kind of sad, kind of a tiny little bit hopeless, kind of doomed. It was kind of left open in the air.

I usually hate those kinds of endings.

Yep, you guessed it. Once again, Holly Black pulled it off. I have no idea how, but she did. I can't wait to read more Holly Black in the future! This book was beautiful.

My Rating:

Disclaimer: I was not reimbursed for this review in any way. All opinions or thoughts expressed are my own.