The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - by Holly Black

My rating: 

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. (Goodreads)

I love vampire books and admittedly my expectations aren't that high, but I really do think Holly Black wrote a great and fairly original vampire story here. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown takes place in the modern day in a world where vampirism has become an epidemic and so the infected are quarantined in Coldtowns. The vampires themselves aren't quite as groundbreaking, but I'm totally happy with classic vampires and I appreciate that Black pays homage to previous vampire stories in this book. I think what really sells this novel, though, is the great writing and the characters.

I've heard plenty of complaints about the characters in this book, but I loved them. Tana, our protagonist, is very well written as a normal, teenage girl. Sure, it's frustrating when she mak es stupid decisions but at the same time these decisions seem very believable for a hungover teenager who has just woken up surrounded by dead bodies. Her ex, Aiden, is even more stupid and admittedly obnoxious but again he comes across as a realistic teenage guy. We also have a brother / sister duo of goth Youtubers who are going to document their trip to Coldtown to become vampires. Again, horribly annoying but so well written. The only main character that didn't come across as extremely believable was Gavriel, Tana's vampire love interest. On the other hand, there's totally an Anne Rice-ish Louis/Lestat vibe around him so I was willing to ignore any shortcomings.

The characters fit really well into the plot Black sets up and I think the novel moves along at a great pace without sacrificing any character backstories or development. Holly Black is a great writer and I really love her take on the classic vampire novel. I would definitely recommend this book to vampire fans!

Lock & Mori - by Heather W. Petty

My rating: 

I'm a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and love the BBC show, so I'm always interested in a new take on the character. Lock & Mori is a young adult novel with a couple of variations from the original. First of all, it's set in modern-day London and Sherlock and Moriarty are both in high school. The biggest change though is that in Petty's story Moriarty, or Mori as she's known, is a girl.

I thought this was a solid first novel, and I was totally on board with the developing romance between Sherlock and Mori. Petty did a good job of not only bringing these characters into the modern day but also imagining what they would be like as teenagers. Both the main characters are, fittingly, pretty brilliant, but definitely still in the awkward teenage phase and it totally works. I especially loved Mori's character because in this novel she is a well-developed, nuanced character with some really dark stuff going on her life. To start out, her mother recently died and now her father has become an alcoholic who beats her younger brothers and verbally abuses Mori when she tries to stand up for them. And that's just the beginning. While she's still extremely intelligent, Mori in this novel is much less predictable than Sherlock. With so many personal issues going on, she makes a lot of questionable decisions without stopping to logically think through how things will turn out. For me, this made her character a bit easier to relate to and sympathize with because there are times when she acts purely on emotion.

Now, onto the plot. As you would expect from a Sherlock retelling, the plot centers around a murder mystery. Sherlock and Mori team up to see if they can solve the case on their own, but Mori ends up keeping some secrets along the way. Petty's writing was really compelling and made me want to finish this book as quickly as possible. For me, this made up for the fact that parts of the mystery were a bit predictable. Also, like I mentioned, there's some romance to this story that you don't see in many Sherlock retellings. The romance between the two main characters developed quickly, but still felt natural to me. I also liked that, while this a decent amount of romance throughout, it doesn't take away from the murders as the main focus of the story.

Lock & Mori is the first book in what will eventually be a series, with two more books planned. From Petty's website it looks like we can expect about a year between each, with the next books planned for fall 2016 and fall 2017. Unlike most series I read, I actually went into this one knowing that it's not yet finished. I was somewhat hesitant, but Lock & Mori was definitely worth it. I also felt like the ending had just enough of cliffhanger to make me want more, but not so much that I was outraged about not being able to read the second book.