The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

If I were to summarise this book in one word it would be WOW. Because wow, this book was amazing.

You know how the Paranormal genre is overflowing with vampire books and most of these books have roughly the same kind of plot, the same kind of protagonist and the same kind of vampires. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown really stands out in this genre of bland books.

First things first, Holly Black is a writing goddess. Her writing is epic. It does not have short, stupid sentences that leave you wondering WTH? It does not have overly long, overly poetic sentences that again leave you wondering WTH? It’s slightly lyrical, slightly poetic and flows together very smoothly.

The book begins with Tana Bach waking up in a bathtub, completely hung-over, and finding all her friends/classmates/fellow party-goers dead. The only living person is Aidan, her ex-boyfriend, who’s been tied up along with a vampire, Gavriel, by other vampires who were basically responsible for the carnage. After a successful rescue mission by Tana the three proceed to the Springfield Coldtown, the nearest center for vampire activity, and engage in epic adventures.

This book is morbid. This book is gory. Vampires are not just beautiful, sparkly creatures, they’re actual bloodthirsty monsters. Yep, there’s plenty of violence and blood and death.

Another thing I appreciated was the variety of humans and vampires shown. There are some humans who are enamoured with vampires, there are some humans who want to be vampires, and there are some humans who want nothing to do with vampires. Similarly there are vampires who are pure evil and then there are those who are not so evil. Oh and there are also vampires who are completely crazy. Variety, see?

You know those books with dumb, clueless protagonists? The ones where you figure out the entire mystery 200 pages before the main character does and then you have to endure 200 freakin pages of the main character stumbling around in the dark? Well, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown definitely wasn’t one of those books. Tana is, hands off, the coolest, bravest, kindest and cleverest of all YA protagonists.

And then we have Gavriel who is equally enamouring in a crazy, poetic kind of way.

More things I loved about the book?

I loved how each chapter started off with a quotation on death. I loved how the book alternated between modern day America and 19^th century Russia and Paris. I loved how we were provided the characters’ back-story to help understand them better.

The world building was very interesting, but there were a few plot holes that really bothered me. I’d normally be okay since most plot holes are solved in the sequels but I’m not really sure this book is going to have a sequel. Heck, I’m not even sure if I want it to have a sequel. On one hand I’d really love to read more about Tana and Gavriel, on the other hand, though, the ending was just perfect.

Suffice to say I’m a newly converted Holly Black fan and I can’t wait to get my hands on her Curse workers series.