Monday, February 17, 2014
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
In The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Holly Black builds the world I first read about in the short story by the same name in the collection The Poison Eaters. The book features different characters in the same world with a couple of repeated plot ideas. Be Aware: this is a book with violence and sex.
Tana lives in a world where vampires are known to be deadly and violent but who are also media marketed as sexy. Simplified: Vampirism is a two step process where first the human is infected by a vampire bite and becomes cold and then drinks human blood and becomes a vampire. If a human can not drink human blood for 88 days after being infected, the poison passes from their system. Infected people and vampires are kept in Coldtowns - ghettos unregulated by police or government.
At a weekend party, Tana passes out in a bathtub and wakes to find the party goers massacred by vampires. In a bedroom she finds her ex-boyfriend infected and tied to a bed with a chained vampire on the floor. She frees both of them and escapes from the house sustaining a scraped bite on her leg. The three make their way to Coldtown. Along the way Tana wrestles with her possible infection, love, lust, and fear. Coldtown is a brutal and unsavory place which is still seen by people of all ages as the only place they can be their true selves. Populated by vampire wannabes, vampires, infected, and humans caught in the ghetto when it was built, Coldtown is a dangerous place to be for Tana, Gavriel, and Aidan. Will Tana be food for a beginning vampire, a vampire herself, can she sweat out the infection, and can she save her little sister who flees their dead home for a life with vampires? You can't save everyone. You can't trust anyone.
Tana lives in a world where vampires are known to be deadly and violent but who are also media marketed as sexy. Simplified: Vampirism is a two step process where first the human is infected by a vampire bite and becomes cold and then drinks human blood and becomes a vampire. If a human can not drink human blood for 88 days after being infected, the poison passes from their system. Infected people and vampires are kept in Coldtowns - ghettos unregulated by police or government.
At a weekend party, Tana passes out in a bathtub and wakes to find the party goers massacred by vampires. In a bedroom she finds her ex-boyfriend infected and tied to a bed with a chained vampire on the floor. She frees both of them and escapes from the house sustaining a scraped bite on her leg. The three make their way to Coldtown. Along the way Tana wrestles with her possible infection, love, lust, and fear. Coldtown is a brutal and unsavory place which is still seen by people of all ages as the only place they can be their true selves. Populated by vampire wannabes, vampires, infected, and humans caught in the ghetto when it was built, Coldtown is a dangerous place to be for Tana, Gavriel, and Aidan. Will Tana be food for a beginning vampire, a vampire herself, can she sweat out the infection, and can she save her little sister who flees their dead home for a life with vampires? You can't save everyone. You can't trust anyone.
# posted by JJ @ 8:44 AM 
