The Coldest Girl in ColdTown by Holly Black

I got a copy of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown while at San Diego Comic Convention in July 2013. I had been wanting to read it and I haven't had the time so I have been reading it late at night when I can't sleep. I really enjoyed it.

Information about the book from Amazon:

"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."

The book starts out pretty strong and gives you a look into the main characters emotional state as well as shows you a bit about who she is. I like that instantly you start to connect with the character and start to love her. She is placed in a difficult situation and she has to make a quick decision and decides to help an unlikely person.

I enjoyed the story and the twists and turns, the way the characters are designed to interact with each other and how she makes you feel for some characters and hate other characters.

This book came out in September 2013, if you are looking for a new book to read this is a great one to order on amazon or to pick up at your local bookstore or library.

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

So Stacy Jay came out with a new book, which is a twist on the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. I was lucky enough to get an Advanced Reader Copy of the book at SDCC. I love to read, so I figured I would start sharing with you the books I read, please in the comments share with me a book you love, I love to find new authors.

So this book is about a girl with peeling skin who is blind and the queen to a land that lives under a dome in a place where the world is falling apart and the people outside the dome are monsters. Monsters sneak into the dome to steal the Roses that they believe possess magical powers and keep the dome from destroying itself and keep the people looking human and healthy. He gets captured and she saves him from being murdered because he promises her he can make a garden that will heal her ailment and save the people in her city that live with part of the monsterous disease. She soon learns that not everything is as it seems.

Like the real Beauty and the Beast, of course our Beauty falls in love with the Beast and sees him as more then a monster. Together they change the world. I don't want to give away too much because it unfolds nicely and has some interesting plot twists.

Blurb from Amazon:

"In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret...

In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.

Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.

As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

Stacey Jay also wrote Romeo Redeemed and Juliet Immortal.

If you like YA pick up a copy of this book it's well written interesting and fun.