Update

Oh my gosh - so I've been gone for how long? Technically, it's not even been two weeks yet, but it feels like two years. I've been so busy that I haven't gotten a chance to come on here. It's my last semester of college so I'm crazy busy with dumb paperwork!

While I abandoned my responsibility to blogging - I have still been reading! I didn't read "Endgame" and I didn't read "Zodiac", but I have read other books that I'm not going to review because they are very old and quite popular so I think you probably already read them. I got about 1/4 of a way through "Endgame", but there were just so many other books on my shelf that interested me that I kept my place and vowed to come back on another day. So, with that being said I'm going to just write two more reviews from this month in this post. Tomorrow or Saturday I'm going to do a "most anticipated books of February" post.


"The Coldest Girl In Coldtown" - Holly Black

Description: 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.

So I was privileged with meeting Holly Black at a book signing this past month. She's so down-to-earth and her hair is so cool. She told really funny stories and I hope I see her at conventions this year. Upon asking her if "The Coldest Girl In Coldtown" will have another book she replied, "Well, I know what happens next". EEP! She said she is debating on what her next project will be and I would LOVE it to be the sequel to Coldtown. Wouldn't you?!

I loved this book! In the beginning, I didn't even get Gavriel's purpose. The writing was so good - every other chapter switched from present tense to reflecting on some important aspect of the past. I felt it was so well written it could be considered "fiction" and not just "YA", sort of like Anne Rice. The start of every chapter has quotes, which are so fitting for the chapter that I feel like quoting them myself.   It would look sort of like that "The Office" picture I put below, except with an extra name there, like "- original quote author" - Holly Black,  -Me.

It's so refreshing to see an author stick to the original vampire traditions too. By that I mean that vampires can't go in the sun, can get staked,  are allergic to garlic, etc. I'm sick of reading books and watching movies where vampires are going into the sun. It's like a regular person with fangs, NOT a vampire.

The book gets progressively more interesting. There is betrayal, it's dark and twisted. Tana is a great heroine, who develops more as the story goes becoming selfless and determined. Her ex-boyfriend is kind of stuck in this mess with her, and I really like him as a character. He is so stupid and silly, always managing to mess things up without meaning to. He goes to great lengths to make people like him. THE ENDING - it's such a plot twist. I didn't see it coming! It was very well thought out and not your typical YA book, it's much better!  I highly recommend this novel to anyone - even if you don't like vampires.

"You are more dangerous than daybreak-Holly Black" -Me 

                                     


"Midnight Crossroads" - Charlaine Harris

Description: Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town. There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

So who likes the Sookie Stackhouse novels? Just me? I mean it's not like it's my favorite series and I  have an entire shelf attributed to it complete with a bottle of "True Blood" on it or anything... I had super high expectations for this novel. I wasn't totally disappointed.

First, I've read that some of the characters were from a few of her previous series. Though, there was nobody from the Sookie Stackhouse novels (I'm hoping in book two, maybe). Everyone in the town has some kind of secret, but most secrets aren't revealed yet. It went back and forth a lot, so I really couldn't get too emotionally invested in any of the characters. While some characters seemed to manipulate a lot of the time, I don't think you can single any out as main characters. I'm most interested in Lemuel and Olivia, who run the pawn shop at night. Maybe I'm most interested in them because Lemuel is a vampire and I love vampires…?

The ending was a really big plot twist, which reminded me a lot of the plot twist in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. I will definitely be continuing with the trilogy because I want to know what will become of Fiji and Bobo and I want to know more about Lemuel and Olivia. So - I recommend this book for those that like mysteries. If you like YA novels, I don't recommend this book unless you're looking for something different. However if you do like YA novels, are not in middle school, and haven't read the Sookie Stackhouse novels - read them!!