REVIEW: “THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN” BY HOLLY BLACK

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"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 book has a very interesting take on vampires. Vampirism is no longer a secret in this world and Holly Black describes it as a disease where humans turn “cold” after they’ve been bitten and either drink human blood and turn into vampires or lock themselves up for 88 days to get the vampire venom out of their system and recover.

Due to the fact that this “disease” spreads, so called “Coldtowns” were created where vampires and humans live together in and endless bloody party. Vampires don’t kill all of the humans so they have longer someone to feed on. In an age of internet and reality TV, Coldtowns get an huge amount of attention, showing the fun, thrilling and glamorous live of vampires. So some people develop the thought of longing for becoming immortal and sign up for Coldtown by choice. Once you’re in you can hardly ever leave.

The story follows Tana, a teenage girl who wakes up in a bathroom after a party and discovers that everyone else is dead and the place is covered in blood. The only other survivors are her ex-boyfriend Aidan who she found chained up in a bedroom besides the vampire Gavriel who is held captured.

The killers are still in the house so Tana has to escape and takes her ex-boyfriend as well as the vampire, which seems to be trying to help, with her. Together they set off to Coldtown.

I really liked the book because it turns back to the image on vampires in the old days. Dark, mysterious, blood thirsty, merciless, scary but sexy like in Bram Stockers “Dracula” or “The Vampire Chronicals” by Anne Rice.

I also enjoyed the style of writing a lot. It was easy to read, a bit dark and dramatic but also funny and it gets off to a fast start. The switches between “now” and “then” were great as well because you get an even better view on the story and be able to discover Gavriels dark secrets.

Holly Black created three amazing main characters:

Tana, who is absolutely kick-ass and no girl who need a guy for protecting all the time.

Adrian, who seems kind of annoying but also has a very sweet side

And Gavriel, who I kind of liked best because he reminds me a lot of Anna Rices character Louis de Pointe du Lac. The nice and caring boy on one side but dark and twisted on the other.

And, guys, I can reassure you, even though the protagonists are one girl and two boys there is in no way a love-triangle involved ;)

I’d recommend this book to all the fans of vampire, thrilling or kind of disturbing books out there.

I'd rate this book 4/5 stars!

Lots of love