ARC Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by: Holly Black

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by: Holly Black (Sept. 3, 2013)

432 pages

Genre: YA/Vampires

Source: A free copy from NetGalley for my honest review.

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon

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.

My Review    

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is one of those books that you are either going to like or just not.  I don’t think there really is an in between. I am a fan of vampire novels and Holly Black so I decided to give it a chance. I enjoyed this interesting take on vampires living openly in society and are for the most part are being confined in Coldtowns where some humans also live, I mean they need food (although most of the humans that live there want to live there hoping to be turned into a vampire), but the politics behind all that you will have to discover by reading the book yourself because I don't want to get into all of that here. But even with its uniqueness I also had some issues with the book as well. Overall I liked it, but I wish I could have loved it. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a dark and twisty tale.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown opens with a bloody scene and the race to survival for Tana begins. It’s too bad this race isn’t as fast paced once you get further into the book as the opening chapters makes you believe. It’s a little slow at times and there are flashbacks that I normally enjoy in books but for some reason they didn’t work here. Instead of adding more to the story it made it choppy and they were just annoying.

Tana is an interesting and complex character. I enjoyed watching her try to make decisions throughout the book on how to handle the situation she is put in after she wakes up at the party with just about everyone dead. The two males she is on the run with added a nice little touch of conflict. I can’t say that any of the characters are too memorable though.

The biggest turn off for me while reading was that there is of course a vampire-human type romance that verges on insta-love and with how much the human dislikes vampires this had me scratching my head. Since I found this book to be more unique when dealing with vampires I was hoping this romance wouldn’t be in it, taking away some of its uniqueness. Especially since they mention in the book that it’s crazy how vampires are romanticized.  

In the end it was a good read (there is a pretty darn good twist near the end) although nowhere near as awesome as I thought it was going to be. I say read it if you like vampire stories, especially ones that have romance. If you are over the whole vampire thing then I doubt you will like this one.

**I received a free copy from NetGalley for my honest review.

Review: Dance in Shadow and Whisper by: Sarah Godfrey with Victoria DeRubeis

Dance in Shadow and Whisper by: Sarah Godfrey with Victoria DeRubeis (2013)

363 pages

Genre: Supernatural/Vampire/Demons

Source: The authors gave me a free copy of their book for my honest review. Thanks you two!

Purchase: Amazon

Goodreads Summary: Kali unexpectedly discovers on her first day of human high school that she’s forbidden to eat or partake of the toilet during class time, the assigned history and species books look best on the shelves of popular fiction, and the boy she’s watching over is definitely a reincarnated war lord.

The highest powers of Kali’s people and the highest powers of Yuuhi’s people, irreconcilable enemies, designated them to find proof that Jason is, in fact, the reincarnated Ares.

All Yuuhi sees in Jason is the typical scrawny, socially inept emo kid dressed in conflicting shades of black. But Kali sees that Jason’s shadow is bigger than he is, and if the powers of Yuuhi’s people find out, Jason won’t be human much longer.

The desire to protect him from an unexpected visitor brings out her most dangerous sides. Something’s changing in her, something she can’t control, and she’s not afraid of Jason mutating into a creature of the shadows more than she’s afraid she’s becoming something even worse.

And the highest powers will be watching her.

My Review

     

What did I just read? No seriously, I’m totally confused. Dance in Shadow and Whisper is an enjoyable read and is a novel with an interesting take on vampires and demons, but it had my head rolling at times. I enjoyed the story and there were quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, but I can’t for the life of me truly figure out exactly what I just read. I was a little bit confused for pretty much the entire book. Maybe I’m just a little slow, but I’m thinking it’s because things at times aren’t explained overly well in the book. So as I sit back and continue to scratch my head I’m going to tell you what I thought of the book to the best of my ability. 

The characters all around were the strongest part of Dance in Shadow and Whisper (besides the awesome cover of course). Each one was complex, intense, crazy, unique, and out of this world. I love the importance of family and friends in this novel and how Kali and her brothers interact. If you are hoping for a romance there isn’t really one. I didn’t mind this of course, it was a nice vacation from the norm. We get a lot of different POVs in this book which at first turned me off, but then I got used to it and was actually glad because it shined some light on different happenings in the book which helped me battle my confusion problem.

The plot was kind of hard for me to follow, not the overall big picture, but the little details. The world building just wasn’t that spot on and everything seemed to be made more and more complex in a not so great way as the story continued along. I did immensely enjoy several different scenes that were creative and well written, especially whenever Kali was at school trying to be normal, these sences may have made the whole book, but some of the scenes were also a little boring for me. I do however want to emphasize that when I finally got about half way through the novel I couldn’t put it down. It was intense, less confusing, and full of action. It just made me a little sad that it took me half the novel before I started loving Dance of Shadow and Whisper.

Right now this e-book is 99 cents on amazon and I’d say to give it a shot if you are a fan of supernatural books with a lot of crazy stuff going on. I’m not sure I would technically classify this as young adult due to the big amount of curse words and other small things. I can however say with certainty that I will probably read the second one because the ending is a huge cliffhanger and I'm thinking the next book will be easier to understand and faster paced. 

Review: Deadlocked by: Charlaine Harris

Deadlocked by: Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #12)

Publisher: Gollancz

327 pages

Genre: Adult/Fiction/Vampires/Supernatural

*This review may contain spoilers from the previous books in this series.

Goodreads Summary: Sookie has a murder investigation on her hands.

A young girl has died at a vampire party - and it looks as though her lover, Eric, might be responsible. Eric swears he didn't do it, the police don't believe him, and even Sookie isn't so sure. Nor is she inclined to take his word for it, not having caught him enjoying the victim's blood minutes before she was killed.

But something strange is going on. Why had Sookie been asked to come to the fateful party a few minutes early - just to catch Eric in the act? And why had the victim spiked her own blood before approaching Eric? Was it simply because she wanted to be irresistable, or was it something more sinister?

Sookie will have to find out ... but it's the worst moment to investigate, as her Fae family are having troubles of their own and Sookie is, inevitably, drawn in. And there is one last complication. The cluviel dor her grandmother left her. It will grant her one wish, which could fulfil Sookie's heart's desire. The only problem is, she still doesn't know what - or who - her heart truly desires ...

My Review

I’m going to keep this review short because I’m having a hard time avoiding spoilers.

Full disclosure: I am an Eric fan. I will always be an Eric fan. Eric and Sookie forever! This may make my review slightly biased. 

Okay, with that said, I wasn't a huge fan of this book. The series has been slightly declining as of late and it isn't really bothering me that the next book is the last one. (Okay, it still is kind of bothering maybe just not as much as I had hoped.) Don’t get me wrong, I still love this series, but not every book in the series is great. Plus, it just feels like it is time for it to be over. Let’s just hope the last book is epic. I'm waiting for it pretty impatiently.

What I DIDN'T LIKE about this book:

• Not enough Eric Northman. He is barely in it for being such an important character.
• Sookie is starting to get annoying. She just seems so unsure of her self sometimes which shouldn't be the case after 11 books.
• I feel like Harris at time was gripping at straws for plot ideas, if you know what I mean. Especially when dealing with Sam.
• One of the plot twists was just ugh. All I can say is that we all know Eric is more clever than that and should be able to find a different solution. We are talking about Eric freaking Northman here!

What I DID LIKE about this book:

• I still love the world full of supernatural creatures that Harris has created. Fairies, Shifters, Werewolves, and Vampires! Oh my!
• We get a little more time with the Fairies in  this book and it was rather enjoyable.
• I really liked one of the plot twists a lot. I didn't really see it coming and I love a good shock.
• For some reason I just did. I think it is because I'm such a Sookie Stackhouse fan both in print and on the screen.

If you read this series already just keep going. You may as well read this one since there is only one more book left. For those that have yet to start the series, give it a try. Who doesn't love romance, a lot of action, vampires and other supernatural beings all in one book? I promise the beginning of the series starts out so strong that it will be worth your time reading it. Be warned however, the television show doesn't really fallow the books all that closely, especially in this last season.

The last book, Dead Ever After, comes out May 7, 2013!

RATING 3.5/5   Buy Deadlocked