Rating: 4.5 stars
Synopsis: 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. It's an eternal party, shown on TV twenty-four hours a day - gorgeous, glamorous, deadly. The problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave...
Review: Welcome to 2015! It's only taken me a month to pick up a new book but hey, I'm so glad it was this one. Finding myself in a book rut, I visited my library with the plan to pick up one or two books to ease myself back in. Typically, I leave with five, this being one of them. I'd picked this book up last year and started reading it and I got about a quarter of the way through before putting it down and not picking it back up. And I've been kicking myself for it.
This is how you write a vampire book with a modern twist. This book has the spark that I was missing from the Immortal Rules series - the connection between the characters and the way the plot was so thought out was what I expected from the Immortal Rules and more. This book is amazing.
Tana is a seemingly normal teenage girl in a world where vampires are not just the thing of legends. When a sundown party goes terribly wrong and Tana is the only human left alive, her life goes from normal to crazy in the space of twenty seconds. Tana leaves the remnants of the party with her ex-boyfriend who is in the process of going Cold and a vampire who may or may not be in serious trouble.
Tana is a strong character who knows what she wants and has the ability to kick herself and get a job done even when all she wants to do is sit in a corner and cry. Unlike Allie in the Immortal Rules though, Tana is human. She is affected by the death of friends and family and is terrified at the idea of going Cold herself. She has a family that she cares about and gives her the motivation she needs to go into the local Coldtown.
The idea of Coldtown's is genius. This is what gives this book a modern twist. When the infection that turns you into a vampire started to spread, Coldtowns were built in the quarantined areas, locking in those who have turned, are in transition, and are still human. The idea is that, if you become infected, you go to a Coldtown and turn yourself in. But the Coldtown's are in chaos, with the vampires ruling the roost. People can watch the elite vampires inside of Coldtown online twenty-four hours a day in a reality show type scenario. The vampire life is made out to be parties and drinking and eternal happiness. What Tana soon finds out, is the picture that is painted to those outside the walls is just that. A pretty picture for the few lucky enough to get in.
Gavriel is a very complex character. An insanely old vampire, who has gone a little off the deep end during his life. We don't know much about his motives throughout the book, except that he and Tana really hit it off together. We gradually learn that Gavriel is seemingly running from vampires intent on torturing him for a crime that caused the spreading of the vampire infection. It was really interesting getting to know Gavriel and Holly is so good at dropping little bits of his backstory in at just the right moment, giving you the information you need but still keeping you pretty much in the dark about who he is.
I thought Lucian was also a great character. One of the elite vampires that stars in his own reality show, Lucian is a manipulative old vampire who turned Gabriel in Paris back in the day. He's not a major player in the book until you've really got into the plot but you don't notice it the way you did with the Immortal Rules for example, where you needed the presence of a villain to kick the plot forward. There were enough little, interlinking plot points throughout the book that meant I never got bored of reading it and never wanted to put the book down.
The structuring was also very good. There are a number of moments throughout the book where the point of view changes. This way, we get to see Gavriel's past and how he became a vampire, we get to see a little bit of Lucian and how he played into what kind of vampire Gavriel became and we get to see Pearl, Tana's little sister, and see the fallout from the party hit her. In most books, this change would probably have irritated me a little but here it made sense to write the book like this because, by the end, when all of these stories finally came together, it made the impact of the ending so much better. You needed to know about these characters and their thoughts, as well as Tana's and Holly did it really well.
I did not expect the final showdown scene. It was so well done that it shocked me when it was finally revealed. Not many books do that. You really don't see it coming because Holly masks it so well and the characters are so believable in their actions and motives that the big reveal really is a shock but it still feels right and believable for it to be that way.
The only thing I didn't like (and it is only minor) is that on the final page, while all the questions seemed to be tied up for the most part, there are still questions that I want to be answered. Holly hasn't said whether there will be a sequel (please, please, please, please) but I'm hoping. Basically, I just wanted more! While it's a satisfying ending to this book, there is definitely potential for another and I think Holly is clever for leaving it in such a way that she can come back to it one day if she feels like it.
A brilliant read and I'm so glad I picked it up again.
No copyright intended - image from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12813630-the-coldest-girl-in-coldtown
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