Book Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Welcome to Review #3 of Horror Month! Enjoy.

I’m pretty sure that vampires have the worst modern reputation out of all the supernatural creatures incorporated into entertainment, and considering Twilight, who can blame them? Pre-Twilight, vampires were cold, monstrous, and depraved beings who lured humans in with their charm and charisma only to violently drink their blood. They could turn into bats, they burned in the sunlight, they slept in coffins, and were genuinely terrifying. Post-Twilight, the stereotype is that of the edgy vampire who sparkles in the sunlight and chases after supposedly depressed teenaged girls. The difference is, well, stark. Ever since Twilight, the general population has decried the new stereotype and demanded for the old to be brought back. So, people have been making attempts to do this in literature, but unfortunately the Twilight curse still lurks in the darkness, poisoning every vampire book, movie, and anime until society learns that Twilight should be forgotten and never remembered again. A book that manages to separate itself from the Twilightstereotype and renew the old stereotype is The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. Does it succeed in its endeavor? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.

The Setup:

The book takes place in an alternate version of reality where vampires exist, and vampirism is basically a disease. If a vampire bites you, you become infected, and if you drink human blood before 88 days pass (it takes 88 days for the infection to fade, for some reason), you become a vampire. One day, a vampire named Casper thought it was a good idea to go around biting people without killing them, causing the infection to spread and new vampires to appear left and right. This results in the constructions of Coldtowns, places where vampires and the infected are quarantined and can no longer hurt anyone outside of the coldtown. Meet protagonist Tana Bach (yes, that is her name, and no, I have no idea whether she’s actually related to the musical composter Bach. It would be pretty awesome if she were), a teenager who wakes up at a party to find out that all of her friends are dead, killed by vampires. The only other people who are alive are Aidan, her now-infected ex-boyfriend, and a chained-up vampire. That is where I will leave you. Even though it does raise quite a few questions, like what are the vampire’s origins, why does it take 88 days to sweat out the infection, and why haven’t people tried to work on a vaccine, this is a great setup. The book’s world is so interesting and very well established going off of the first few chapters. The characters, on the other hand, need some work.

The Characters:

The main problem with the characters, and the story for that matter, is the fact that nothing in either of these two categories is clearly established. The characters don’t really have definite personalities because the book focuses more on its story, and when the story basically just focuses on the setting…well, that’s a problem. Tana is a pretty standard protagonist. She’s tough, is able to make decisions on her own, and independent. There’s nothing about her that truly stood out, except for one thing that I really liked. So, when she was dating Aidan, Aidan always seemed to cheat on her because…well…more on that later. However, instead of just sitting around and moping about it, she joined in on the act, spending time with other guys and just straight-up refraining from telling Aidan that his actions are wrong. When they do break up, they stay that way, and Tana takes every chance she can to keep their relationship from forming again. I am so happy that Holly Black incorporated this into the book rather than succumbing to the regular cliché of guy cheats on girl, girl breaks up with him and cries herself to sleep every night, and then they get back together because I never said that this cliché wasn’t idiotic. That’s the only memorable thing about Tana, though; everything else is kind of generic. Okay, maybe “generic” isn’t the right word, but more like “clouded”, due to the book’s lack of truly establishing who she was. Next, there’s Aidan, who’s even less established than Tana. He has no clear personality as far as I can tell, and whatever’s clear completely contradicts other aspects of his personality. He says that he loves Tana, but then goes off to spend time with other girls at parties. He wants to remain human, but becomes a vampire anyway. He’s shown to be kind-hearted, but what kind person would openly cheat on his girlfriend? And…that’s pretty much it. Finally, there’s Gavriel, the chained vampire in the room and the only above average character in the entire book…except that if I explain why, I’d spoil everything about him. Let’s just say that his backstory is fantastic, and that he’s an intriguing character. The side characters do their jobs, I suppose, but none are truly memorable.

The Story:

As I stated earlier, the story suffers from the same lack of focus that the characters do. This is a prime example of a book where I’m pretty sure the author began writing with no ending in mind or not visualizing how to get to the imagined ending. The entire first half of the book just feels like it’s meandering around, looking for a story to hold everything together. The second half is better, and it does tie together everything that happened in the first half, but that still doesn’t change the fact that during the first half I was sitting there waiting for an actual story to take place. The pacing is pretty slow, and I feel like it could’ve been around 50 pages shorter than what it is (which is around 440 pages, including previews for other books). Then there’s the quasi-romance, and I use the term “romance” incredibly lightly. I’m not going to say that Gavriel and Tana had no chemistry, because they kind of did, but the romance is kinda sorta not there and the feelings the two parties had for each other were kinda sorta apparent…yeah, the main two words to describe this romance are “kinda” and “sorta”. You never really find out if the two actually have romantic feelings for each other, or at least in Tana’s case. Gavriel’s reasoning does make sense, but it stems from my least favorite stereotype of all time: the person in distress. The only reason Gavriel loves Tana is because she was the only person to save him in his entire life (or death…both work). That’s pretty weak. Tana has absolutely no reason to fall in love with Gavriel except for the fact that he’s dangerous, yet beautiful. That’s just sad. Even with this weak reasoning, though, you could still create a good romance if you have the characters interact and get to know each other, right? Well, The Coldest Girl in Coldtowndoesn’t take the time to really flesh out their relationship because it spends so much time searching for its plot. When the plot is found, however, the book actually becomes really good. The pacing picks itself up, pretty much all loose ends are tied up, and the ending is pretty satisfying.

The Writing Style/Grammatical Errors:

I don’t like third person narratives, mainly because I feel a lot more separated from the characters due to how it’s not written from anyone’s point of view. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown isn’t really an exception to this. The descriptions of everything are overlong and boring to read, and I get the feeling that the reason the character personalities weren’t established is also because of this. When the book wants to describe violence to you, though…it reallydescribes violence. During the intense scenes, the writing tenses up, and it’s hard to stop reading it when these occur. The second half is almost all of this wonderful writing, so props for that. There were some grammatical errors, but it was mostly misusage of tense, so it wasn’t too distracting.

Scare Factor:

As I stated before, the intense scenes of violence can create scary and suspenseful scenes. However, it is the book's typical detachment from the characters and story that prevents it from being terrifying. I lost no nights of sleep after reading this, and I feel relatively confident that vampires will continue to not exist. However, I didn't really expect it to be scary; the book felt too tame, and not good enough to create the creepy atmosphere that sinks into my nightmares.
Final Judgment:

Overall, despite my criticisms, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown was a pretty good book, at least entertainment-wise. The setting is very interesting, and is hands-down the best part of the book and receives the most focus. Its story and characters have some major flaws, as the book was slow to or didn’t establish some key details. However, once the book got good, it became really good, with some very well written and tense scenes. So, it all comes together to be slightly above average. I give The Coldest Girl in Coldtown a 2.75 out of 5, and a recommendation to read it if you’re interested. But, like always, it is up to you to decide your own opinions.

ScoreCard: 

Further Recommendations:

Anna Dressed in Blood

This is another horror book with well-written action scenes and violence along with some pretty good characters and a better story. Just don’t read the sequel/

The Lux Series

This is a wonderful paranormal romance series whose final book I am reading right now. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing out.

The next review will be on…oh, wow, it’s the final review of Horror Month! It will be on the anime The Future Diary. See you then!