Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black. The Goodreads summary:

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.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

I wouldn’t classify myself as a vampire fan in general. Obviously, there are some exceptions (“Sunshine” and the Vampire Academy/Bloodlines series being the ones that most immediately spring to mind), but usually, when I find out a book’s about vampires, that’s something that tends to make me more skeptical of it rather than excited for it. But you see, this vampire book’s by Holly Black. I mean, come on. Holly Black. Plus, it had one of my favorite titles of the year going for it. So moral of the story, I decided to read it. And I loved it.

It’s just . . . edgy and dark and a little gory and basically everything I wanted a YA vampire book to be. It starts out with Tana waking up at a party where essentially everyone but her has been murdered, if that gives you any idea of the kind of book we’re dealing with. And Tana is not a bright and happy character, even before everything goes wrong, and as the book progresses she only gets tougher and more and more bad-A. She’s a character whose almost impenetrable emotional armor could easily rub me the wrong way, but for some reason, it never did. I liked her even when she was doing things that had me practically shrieking, “Don’t do it, Tana!” I think it’s because even when she was doing things that were basically suicidal, she was doing them with a purpose and with her eyes open and not because she’s naïve or dumb.

Also, Gavriel. Well, all the vampires really, but mostly Gavriel. I mostly just kind of really love him. He’s so much of a mystery at first, which is probably what sucked me in, and on top of that he’s dark and dangerous and there’s no mistaking him for a pseudo-bad boy with a heart of gold. His heart is dark and his badness goes perilously close to the bone. But it doesn’t go quite all the way there, which is what makes him so fascinating to me—those moments when you see that his morals may be horribly twisted, but they still, just barely, remain morals.

The only thing that didn’t work as well for me was that there was no clear plot direction. Tana is taking things one day—one hour, really—at a time and doesn’t have any particular goals. She’s just trying to stay alive. And so the reader has to take things step by step along with her, not having any clues about what is going to ultimately happen. And for me, without a definite direction, the story felt a little, well, directionless at times.

Overall, an engrossing read. This isn’t a light-hearted book by any means, but if you’re in the mood for something a little darker, I totally recommend it.

Rating: 4 / 5

Review: Shadows

Shadows, by Robin McKinley. The Goodreads summary:

Maggie knows something’s off about Val, her mom’s new husband. Val is from Oldworld, where they still use magic, and he won’t have any tech in his office-shed behind the house. But—more importantly—what are the huge, horrible, jagged, jumpy shadows following him around? Magic is illegal in Newworld, which is all about science. The magic-carrying gene was disabled two generations ago, back when Maggie’s great-grandmother was a notable magician. But that was a long time ago.

Then Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. He’s from Oldworld too—and he’s heard of Maggie’s stepfather, and has a guess about Val’s shadows. Maggie doesn’t want to know . . . until earth-shattering events force her to depend on Val and his shadows. And perhaps on her own heritage.

In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie’s discovering the world will need both to survive.

Here’s something I hope you know about me by now: Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors. Ever. I’ve read everything she’s written at least twice, and some of her books I’ve reread more times than I can count. So from the first page of “Shadows,” I fell right back in with McKinley’s writing style, and even though this book came out just a couple weeks ago, it immediately felt comforting and familiar.

Of the books McKinley’s written, I think “Shadows” is most closely related in style to “Dragonhaven” and “Sunshine” in that it takes place in an equivalent to the modern word and is written in the first person. McKinley’s books are always sneakily funny, but I feel like whenever she writes in the first person, the humor is given a bit more free reign through the narrative voice. And Maggie in this book is pretty dang funny. She’s a bit snarky and sarcastic and just generally made me smile. She didn’t quite grab me as much as McKinley’s protagonists usually do, but I liked her all the same.

Can I just take a little sidebar here and give a thumbs up for the way McKinley writes about dogs? I swear the dogs in her books are as much characters as anyone else, and Mongo in this book is no exception. McKinley portrayal of him is so spot on and vivid that half the time I expected to look down and see Mongo curled up by my feet. By the time I finished “Shadows,” I was three-fourths of the way convinced that maybe I really am a dog person after all.

Here’s the other thing I want to give McKinley a high five for: she avoids a love triangle! I was seriously worried that “Shadows” was headed that direction, and although I knew that if anyone could successfully handle a love triangle it’s Robin McKinley (hello, “The Hero and the Crown” and “Sunshine”), I was still dreading a love triangle all the same. But thankfully McKinley steers the book clear of that potential emotional mess and keeps that aspect of the story fairly stress-free.

Now here’s the thing I wasn’t so crazy about. This book felt like the beginning of a series. Except, Robin McKinley (with the exception of “Pegasus”) doesn’t do series. So I was left a little confused. Because while all the small, immediate problems in the book are dealt with, the overarching issues don’t get resolved, and I felt like some of the explanation I needed was never provided (e.g., why cobeys suddenly started appearing in the first place, what was going on with the origami, what the heck was going on with that algebra book, etc.). So I fear that rather than this being a brilliant start to a series, it's actually a slightly frustrating standalone.

Overall, this book was by Robin McKinley, so duh, of course I liked it. I’m a bit confused about whether it’s supposed to be a standalone or not, but in general I had a good time. It didn’t end up being my favorite of hers, but maybe I just need to give it some time and read it again. After all, I struggled with “Chalice,” “Sunshine,” AND “The Hero and the Crown” the first time around, and now they’re some of my favorites of hers. So who knows where “Shadows” will ultimately end up.

Rating: 4 / 5