"The Coldest Girl In Cold Town"...One Frigid Mess

Title:  The Coldest Girl In Coldtown
Author:  Holly Black
Format:  ERC
Length:  419 pages
Publisher:  Little Brown & Co.
Rating:  2 Stars

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

My Thoughts
This book a another sad example of a good premise gone horribly wrong.  The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, has all the dysfunction, drama, sexy vamp action, and character diversity to make a most readable book...in most cases. 

Unfortunately, this instance is not one of those.
 

Why not...?

Have a seat.  It's going to be a long list.

Tana, the codependent protagonist.  There wouldn't be a story at all if it were not for the fact that Tana can NEVER SAY NO to Adain, her way ex boyfriend, who she seems to have to save from himself every 5 minutes.

Aidan, the bisexual, wanna-be bad boy, dumb as a box of rocks, victim of EVERYTHING!
While Miss Black's attempt at cultural diversity is greatly appreciated, the portrayal of Aidan as a brainless tease who is willing to bed any and everything that moves; does a great disservice to the effort of promoting positive GBLT leads in YA.

The writing.  While there is no denying that this story is well written; the fact remains that it is simply to long.  Simple settings are described into minutia and dialog is peppered with flowery, overly verbose phrasing.

The story told here has been told before, and recently.  Does The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa ring any bells?
The only difference here being that Julie's protagonist had valid reasons for being in the Vampire City and the plot made sense.

If you are a fan of long stories about emotionally immature teens, suffering from a curable virus that causes vampirism, who get into totally nonsensical situations for no good reason.
This is the read for you.