The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Publisher: Indigo
Publication Date: September 3rd 2013
Source: Bought

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.

I'd been looking forward to this book for such a long time! I came across it randomly on Goodreads one day and then I just couldn't wait for it to be released! I hadn't even planned on buying it this soon, but I saw it in Waterstones and I just couldn't resist (the cover is so pretty!). 

When I read the first chapter, I seriously thought that I was going to love this book. It just roped me in straight away and I was dying to find out what was going to happen to Tana, Aiden & Gavriel. But as the book went on, my interest in the characters started to disappear. The only one I was particularly interested in by the end was Gavriel. 

Tana wasn't really a stand out character. Sure, at the start she seemed like a brave and strong character, but as the book went on she started to annoy me. She was so convinced that she was doomed that she just couldn't see sense, and then she put herself in danger and everything that happened to her was her own fault. I can't really say much more about Tana without spoiling everything, but I will say that I don't get why she did that at the end and didn't just give in. It didn't make any sense to me.

Aiden is an ass. I never liked him at the start and my feelings pretty much stayed the same throughout the book. Maybe I started to like him very slightly at the end, but he's still an ass.

Gavriel is really the only character I loved. He was a crazy, insane vampire and I just adored him so freaking much. I was actually much more interested in hearing his back story and how he became a vampire. I was always much happier when Gavriel was in the story, I kind of got bored when he wasn't. He made the book much more interesting in my opinion.

The story started off on a high with that fantastic opening chapter that sucked me in. And then the rest of the book had its ups and downs. There were times when I was really interested in the story, and times I couldn't be bothered reading it anymore. I just didn't feel like I connected with any of the characters apart from Gavriel, so it was hard for me to be interested in the parts he wasn't in. It took me almost 5 days to read this book! That's a really long time for me, I can usually finish a book in a couple of hours, but this one just didn't capture my interest fully. 

However, the whole idea of the Vampires in this book interested me. There's kind of like a Vampire ruler that they have to consult which I found really interesting. I also really loved learning about how people became Vampires and reading about characters going through it. And the whole idea of Coldtowns intrigued me as well.

The last couple of chapters before the ending are really what bumped this book up a star. They were exciting and there was also a twist that was extremely unexpected and I only realised when Tana did. So it was definitely a great and unexpected twist. 

The last chapter didn't go the way I'd hoped it would, but I kind of expected it because of Tana's feelings. It kind of annoyed me, but it was an alright ending.

Overall, this was a good read. I found parts of it really interesting and other parts boring, but there was a very interesting, crazy vampire to make up for it. It definitely wasn't the best vampire book I've read, but it wasn't the worst. I'd say it's worth a read.