The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

If you are looking for a Twilight-like book, this isn't it. At all. In this world that is not far in the future, vampires live in the open. Vampirism is caused by an infection by a full vampire who penetrates the skin but does not kill a person. That person goes Cold and starts craving blood. If a Cold person drinks human blood, s/he will soon die then rise again as a hungry newborn vampire. If a person can resist 88 days of being Cold without drinking human blood, chances are good they will sweat out in the infection and stay human.

So Tana passes out at a party and wakes up to the massacre around her. Everybody is dead and gory. Until she finds her friend Aiden tied to a bed in the coat room. He's infected. There is also a vampire chained to the wall. The perpetrators are coming back.

Their destination becomes Coldtown, an enclosed vampire ecosystem. Aiden is Cold, Tana might be, and mysterious Gavriel has revenge on his mind. The story gets more clear as the reader goes along and makes sense in a fantasy fiction kind of way. The pace is quick and the reader is spared no gory details. Swearing is minimal, dialogue is interesting but contains sexual connotations, gore is rampant.

There are basically two views of being vampire. The young and gullible see the romanticized view with camera feeds of a reality show by Lucien who is charming and suave. Also cold blooded and kind of a sociopath. But television doesn't broadcast that part. The other view is the despair of the ecosystem of Coldtown. It is a dangerous and hopeless place to be with limited food source for all parties.

Unknown to all players but one, the ecosystem is going to change in a drastic way as revenge is sought and a history revealed. That's what makes the story so interesting.

This is book one. It ended in a manner that I was satisfied enough but look forward to book 2.

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