"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."The best thing about this book is the writing. Holly Black is a good writer, the writing in this book is poetic...it runs excessively so at times, but I enjoy that sort of writing, so it didn't bother me.
What did not work was the plot, and the excessiveness of the book. This book was overly long for the material that it contained. You could have easily removed a good 25% of this book without losing relevance, without losing much of the plot. There was too much needless introspection, too many flashbacks, and memories, and characters' POVs that felt largely irrelevant to the main part of the story.
To give credit where it's due, the first chapter is excellent. It opens with Tana waking up in a bathtub after a night of heavy drinking and partying. Head banging, she stumbles across the house to discover the horrific fate that has befallen her friends and quickly realises that she could very well be next. The story after that moves at a snail's pace; in fact, one might argue that it is non-existent for the majority of the book.
I also appreciated the representation in the bi Aiden and the transgender character Valentina and that it wasn't overly hyped up or over explained. It simply was.
The concept of Coldtowns, where vampires and infected are quarantined with some willing and unwilling human, was extremely interesting at first, but ended up being a mess with a lot of holes and inconsistencies that my mind could not comprehend. This book's type of vampirism does not break any mould, but it was well-conceived enough.
Overall, the reason why I disliked this story is because of the characters. I either didn't care about or outright disliked every single character, with the majority of my irritation directed towards the main character and her incomprehensible stupidity: Tana Bach. All of the characters felt like cardboard cut-outs and walking stereotypes. The vampires in this book were uninspired, they're a mix between goth-punk-wannabes, or exaggeratedly suave and evil Lestat/Louis-types of Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire fame.
This world glorifies vampires, who are murderers, at the same time it glorifies the people who hunt vampires (Hemlok: Vampire Bounty Hunter is a popular reality show). Vampires have their own reality show feeds directly from Coldtowns, the world gathers to watch vampires party, dance, go to raves, suck on other people's bloods, chill out in sumptuous beds and making out with each other, dressed in glorious velvet clothes soaked through in blood. I thought this could be an interesting way to go about exploring how extreme beauty and preconceived romanticised ideas can change peoples perceptions but that was never fully developed.
I cannot understand how the main character in this book can be so mind-numbingly dumb. Tana KNOWS how dangerous a Cold person is. Her mother literally RIPS her arms apart when little 10-year old Tana somehow felt the urge to be a do-gooder and free her mother from her chains in the basement. Being Cold, having a thirst for blood is like an cocaine addict needing a fix, only 10 times worse because you might actually kill a person and rip their throat out in your desperate need and thirst for human blood. It doesn't matter whom. A Cold person's bloodthirst transcends friendship, love, rationality.
Tana KNOWS this. She IGNORES it yet again when it happens. Not only does she choose to trust the vampire Gavriel, knowing nothing about him, despite his veiled threats and warnings for her NOT to trust him, she tags along with him and rescues him from his chains anyway. She also helps her Cold ex-boyfriend Aiden who jumps on her and tries to eats her repeatedly!!Tana does nothing but admonish him lightly. When she learns Gavriel's true identity, she STILL trusts him. Tana's foolishness, impetuousness, idiotic decision making never, ever stops, and I could not enjoy this book considering she is the main character.
Not to mention this particularly foolish moment: LET'S JUST KISS AND DELIBERATELY BAIT A HUNGRY HOMOCIDIAL VAMPIRE WITH BLOOD. Yeah a really great idea, especially a vampire we have only just meet like a day ago. I won't even go into the idiotic and forced romance between Tana and Gavriel, it made no sense and had no build up.
Age Rating 15+. Lots of death and, while it is blood it plays out very much like drug use.
This world glorifies vampires, who are murderers, at the same time it glorifies the people who hunt vampires (Hemlok: Vampire Bounty Hunter is a popular reality show). Vampires have their own reality show feeds directly from Coldtowns, the world gathers to watch vampires party, dance, go to raves, suck on other people's bloods, chill out in sumptuous beds and making out with each other, dressed in glorious velvet clothes soaked through in blood. I thought this could be an interesting way to go about exploring how extreme beauty and preconceived romanticised ideas can change peoples perceptions but that was never fully developed.
I cannot understand how the main character in this book can be so mind-numbingly dumb. Tana KNOWS how dangerous a Cold person is. Her mother literally RIPS her arms apart when little 10-year old Tana somehow felt the urge to be a do-gooder and free her mother from her chains in the basement. Being Cold, having a thirst for blood is like an cocaine addict needing a fix, only 10 times worse because you might actually kill a person and rip their throat out in your desperate need and thirst for human blood. It doesn't matter whom. A Cold person's bloodthirst transcends friendship, love, rationality.
Tana KNOWS this. She IGNORES it yet again when it happens. Not only does she choose to trust the vampire Gavriel, knowing nothing about him, despite his veiled threats and warnings for her NOT to trust him, she tags along with him and rescues him from his chains anyway. She also helps her Cold ex-boyfriend Aiden who jumps on her and tries to eats her repeatedly!!Tana does nothing but admonish him lightly. When she learns Gavriel's true identity, she STILL trusts him. Tana's foolishness, impetuousness, idiotic decision making never, ever stops, and I could not enjoy this book considering she is the main character.
Not to mention this particularly foolish moment: LET'S JUST KISS AND DELIBERATELY BAIT A HUNGRY HOMOCIDIAL VAMPIRE WITH BLOOD. Yeah a really great idea, especially a vampire we have only just meet like a day ago. I won't even go into the idiotic and forced romance between Tana and Gavriel, it made no sense and had no build up.
Age Rating 15+. Lots of death and, while it is blood it plays out very much like drug use.
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