Holly Black Gives Stephenie Meyer The Bird

I apologize in advance for those of you who are fond of sparkly vampires, but one of the biggest problems I had with the whole Twilight series was the sheer passivity of Bella and the fact that when she actually became a vampire, she wasn’t a monster struggling with blood thirst but simply a stronger, more sparkly version of herself. My favorite vampires (Angel, the heroine of Sunglasses After Dark whose name escapes me, Nick Knight, etc.) all struggled with the weight of the killing they had done and the blood drinking they still wanted to do. Eternal life comes with a price and that price involves bringing death to those around you.

Holly Black tackles this issue square on in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by creating a world where both the Twilight fantasy and the dark cold reality rub up against each other. In this world, people can be infected by vampire bites, “turned cold,” and if they drink human blood, the virus in their system mutates, kills them, and they then turn into full-fledged vampires. However, if they manage to not drink human blood for 88 days, they may be able to beat the virus. Needless, to say this is easier said than done since the craving for human blood in those who are “turned cold” is extreme (think hard core addiction). “Cold Towns,” areas or even whole cities that have been walled off from the rest of the world, have been created to try to quarantine those who are infected but they have turned into places where vampires, humans, and those in transition mix in complex and decadent ways—fueled by depictions both televised and broadcast on social media.

It is in this world that Black tells the story of teenage Tana, who wakes up after a party as one of three survivors of a vampire massacre. Her friend and ex-boyfriend, Aidan, is infected and there is a young man, chained next to him, who seems to be a vampire. Tana’s decision to save both her friend and this vampire from those who did the killing sets her on a journey that will take her straight into the nearest Cold Town and straight toward her fears of becoming infected and trying to kill those she loves just like her mother did when she was ten.

It’s a dark, violent, and bloody tale but one where Tana is constantly choosing to act (and not be acted upon) and that made me want to stand up and cheer quite a bit as I read this. This is a world where there is a lot of darkness but people make choices that create sparks of light.