Scan barcode
zbrarian's review against another edition
4.0
This was a slow burn mystery about Todd and Georgia, two gay teens connected to each other by Todd’s murder. A who-done-it that leaves you guessing until the end. A story of two teens figuring out their place in life, even though one is dead. Told from alternating perspectives of Todd, the ghost & Georgia, a wanna-be detective who isn’t actively trying to figure out who killed Todd, she just begins to piece things together, with an answer that leaves her reeling. I look forward to interviewing Ms. Tamaki at TLA!
TW: homophobia; murder; sex scenes
TW: homophobia; murder; sex scenes
kristi_starr35's review against another edition
3.0
*Thank you to NetGalley for the advance digital galley.*
A murder mystery with a lingering ghost, Tamaki's Cold is the story of the life and death of Todd Mayer, his naked, freezing body discovered in a park. Cold also describes his classmates' dispositions toward him. It could also be the clues to the crime - or the lack thereof.
Georgia feels a connection to the boy and his death, even though she didn't know him. She becomes a bit obsessed with discovering the motive behind his death. Will she uncover the truth before the trail goes totally cold?
Todd's consciousness lurks throughout the book, brining the reader to the moment of his death, but he's mostly just a presence, a loner in death much as he was in life, a way to provide continuity. Georgia will start to make the connections, but she's also a bit of an odd character with an odder backstory.
This book will find an audience with die-hard Mariko Tamaki fans, readers wanting a mystery with a side of teen angst, or readers looking for LGTBQ+ characters.
A murder mystery with a lingering ghost, Tamaki's Cold is the story of the life and death of Todd Mayer, his naked, freezing body discovered in a park. Cold also describes his classmates' dispositions toward him. It could also be the clues to the crime - or the lack thereof.
Georgia feels a connection to the boy and his death, even though she didn't know him. She becomes a bit obsessed with discovering the motive behind his death. Will she uncover the truth before the trail goes totally cold?
Todd's consciousness lurks throughout the book, brining the reader to the moment of his death, but he's mostly just a presence, a loner in death much as he was in life, a way to provide continuity. Georgia will start to make the connections, but she's also a bit of an odd character with an odder backstory.
This book will find an audience with die-hard Mariko Tamaki fans, readers wanting a mystery with a side of teen angst, or readers looking for LGTBQ+ characters.
tasharobinson's review against another edition
3.0
Reminded me a fair bit of The Lovely Bones, but more prosaic, less poetic. I wish the perspective of the ghostly dead kid added more to this book than an omniscient onlooking eye — the prospect of a naked, murdered, bullied queer boy looking over the proceedings dispassionately, incapable of feeling anything, is such a heavy and depressing conceit that it's really odd how little emotion or catharsis it brings into what's basically a junior murder mystery.
_delanee8_'s review against another edition
2.0
it’s not bad but i just didn’t like his pov and everything was so rushed and unfinished
it had potential tho
it had potential tho
ellelainey's review against another edition
2.0
Cold, by Mariko Tamaki
★★☆☆☆
228 Pages
1st person, present tense POV; 3rd person, past tense POV
Themes: ghosts, high school, family, friendship, LGBT, bullying
Triggers: death of a minor
Genre: Mystery, LGBT, New Adult
~
Okay, first off, I have to say this is probably not suitable for anyone under 15 years old. There are F-bombs on nearly every page, there is implied and fade-to-black sex, and one weird MC who keeps putting uncomfortable discussions on page, for no reason I can fathom.
Now that's out the way...
...I didn't get it. I'm sorry. I just didn't really get the book at all. I liked Todd and his POV, as well as his journey through his death, but I HATED Georgia, who made no sense to me and didn't contribute *anything* worthwhile to the plot until page 100!
Page 100! Even then, she gave us a “clue” that we already knew about, and meant nothing. It took another THIRTY pages for her actually prove why she had a place in this book that warranted her own weird, 1st person, present tense, POV.
I'll be honest. If you remove 80% of Georgia from the story, I would have given it a solid 4 stars rating. I just really didn't like her, and she proved pointless to the plot until too late into the book. Even then, she didn't actually solve anything. Someone confessed to her. Which...I'm sorry, it was WEIRD! Who confesses after sex? And WHY? And, it wasn't even a surprise. I predicted it probably around page 50 or so. I didn't get the exact details, but I figured out the main parts and was proven right in the last few pages.
Right, so...yeah, this book left me feeling angry. Irritated. Wondering why I spent a whole day and night reading it, when it ended up proving such a disappointment. I can honestly say I've never read a book like it, but that's not a compliment. I saw a review saying it's been compared to “Lovely Bones”. No. I've read that, and it was clever, original, groundbreaking. The only way these two books are similar is in the fact they both have a dead person giving their POV. That's it.
It feels rude to say it, but I'm going to...the writing was childish. The way that gossip and wild theories brought Georgia absolutely NOWHERE near the right answer, until someone confessed after sex. Most of Georgia's thoughts are petty and juvenile.
I don't even know why Georgia gets such a huge POV slice, because I could see the book being written entirely from Todd's POV and STILL getting the same answers. Only, it would have more emotion and more mystery, both of which were lacking. I mean, I haven't been this irritated by an MC since Bella from Twilight, which is saying a lot.
But...let's look at the problems logically:
- there is a HELL OF A LOT OF SHOUTING going on in this book, with CAPITAL LETTERS EVERYWHERE!
- the writing inexplicably switches from Georgia's 1st person, present tense, to Todd's 3rd person past tense, which makes no sense. If you're going to label the chapters by the character's name, then why not keep them both the same? It didn't change what we knew or found out.
- there is a SHIT-TON of swearing here. I mean, the cover makes it look like a cutesy-mystery for 12-16 year olds, but it is NOT. It is definitely 15+, because there's sex and swearing and murder, accusing a teacher of a relationship with a student, making stereotypical, and harmful, assumptions about LGBT characters.
- and let's just pause to deal with Georgia. Who has NO qualms about looking at the French Fry Guy at the food truck at school, and saying he's the type of guy who would probably RAPE you, if you were alone together in an alley. I mean....WHAT THE F is wrong with her? Her thoughts often go off into this seriously uncomfortable tangent.
- the writing style drops weirdly long flashbacks into chapters, usually right in the middle of the characters doing something important. For example, the cops will be questioning someone, and Todd's thoughts will recall a previous interview, while we're already waiting for an answer to a question in the current interview.
- the careless, casual mention within Georgia's POV of things like cancer, rape and sex offenders, that SHE FINDS FUNNY! As someone who has had cancer, it's not something you just toss out there like a joke. EVER!
- the completely obscure choice of small vs capital letters in this one sentence : “a white woman and a Black man”. I don't know what this is suppose to mean, or if it's an honest mistake, but it felt weird.
Positives:
- strong Asian MC rep
- LGBT rep
- gay teacher and gay cop rep
- Todd.
I'm super sad that while Georgia got to let her freak flag fly for ages, Todd felt like he'd been forgotten about. It was only in the last half of the book that he showed any kind of real personality. He was constantly being labelled 'ice cold', but he warmed up in the end and I really felt connected to him. If the book had been ALL about Todd, I would absolutely have given it a 4*. But, it wasn't. It was ALL ABOUT GEORGIA, which was really disappointing.
I wanted more Todd. I wanted to see what made him tick. What he was like as an alive kid, with a crush. I wanted to see him show some damned emotion about being dead. I wanted to see him get a resolution, even as a ghost, to finding out what really happened that night, and why he was left to die. And, I want to know what REALLY happened, because we know that he died of hypothermia and that he was left to die, and we know why he was naked, but we don't know if he was naked BEFORE he died, and that actually contributed to his death. We also don't know the proper sentencing and consequences for those involved, which is super irritating.
~
Overall, Cold left me feeling exactly the opposite. I'm annoyed. Red-hot, frustrated, irritated anger at having such a promising book fail to deliver. The plot was predictable, the characters one-dimensional, the writing style and choices were odd, to say the least. Todd was weird in a normal high school kid that no one likes kind of way, while Georgia was weird in the really bad way, that left me wondering what the hell was wrong with her, and maybe I should step back because she was the kind of person to snap, inexplicably, one day and just go crazy or homicidal. Ironically.
Yeah, this isn't a book – or an author – I'll be reading again. I don't like it when people SHOUT AT ME all the time, in books. Worse, when they shout and don't seem to have anything to say. That's what this felt like. It was trying to go somewhere, and trying to say something, but just...didn't.
I wanted mystery...romance...clues and a real investigation. What I got were Todd's indistinct memories that usually had two possible meanings, cops getting nowhere with their investigation, and a rude girl getting the biggest slice of the book to tell a story that...went nowhere. The ending was lacklustre and boring, because there had been NO mystery, until that point. The plot was too obvious, from too early on. Maybe if Georgia had taken an actual interest in what happened, rather than seeing Todd's murder as some fun little anecdote to tell someone one day, it might have gone somewhere. But she didn't care about Todd any more than she cared about what gum Carrie was chewing. And, because of that, I didn't care about anything, either.
★★☆☆☆
228 Pages
1st person, present tense POV; 3rd person, past tense POV
Themes: ghosts, high school, family, friendship, LGBT, bullying
Triggers: death of a minor
Genre: Mystery, LGBT, New Adult
~
Okay, first off, I have to say this is probably not suitable for anyone under 15 years old. There are F-bombs on nearly every page, there is implied and fade-to-black sex, and one weird MC who keeps putting uncomfortable discussions on page, for no reason I can fathom.
Now that's out the way...
...I didn't get it. I'm sorry. I just didn't really get the book at all. I liked Todd and his POV, as well as his journey through his death, but I HATED Georgia, who made no sense to me and didn't contribute *anything* worthwhile to the plot until page 100!
Page 100! Even then, she gave us a “clue” that we already knew about, and meant nothing. It took another THIRTY pages for her actually prove why she had a place in this book that warranted her own weird, 1st person, present tense, POV.
I'll be honest. If you remove 80% of Georgia from the story, I would have given it a solid 4 stars rating. I just really didn't like her, and she proved pointless to the plot until too late into the book. Even then, she didn't actually solve anything. Someone confessed to her. Which...I'm sorry, it was WEIRD! Who confesses after sex? And WHY? And, it wasn't even a surprise. I predicted it probably around page 50 or so. I didn't get the exact details, but I figured out the main parts and was proven right in the last few pages.
Right, so...yeah, this book left me feeling angry. Irritated. Wondering why I spent a whole day and night reading it, when it ended up proving such a disappointment. I can honestly say I've never read a book like it, but that's not a compliment. I saw a review saying it's been compared to “Lovely Bones”. No. I've read that, and it was clever, original, groundbreaking. The only way these two books are similar is in the fact they both have a dead person giving their POV. That's it.
It feels rude to say it, but I'm going to...the writing was childish. The way that gossip and wild theories brought Georgia absolutely NOWHERE near the right answer, until someone confessed after sex. Most of Georgia's thoughts are petty and juvenile.
I don't even know why Georgia gets such a huge POV slice, because I could see the book being written entirely from Todd's POV and STILL getting the same answers. Only, it would have more emotion and more mystery, both of which were lacking. I mean, I haven't been this irritated by an MC since Bella from Twilight, which is saying a lot.
But...let's look at the problems logically:
- there is a HELL OF A LOT OF SHOUTING going on in this book, with CAPITAL LETTERS EVERYWHERE!
- the writing inexplicably switches from Georgia's 1st person, present tense, to Todd's 3rd person past tense, which makes no sense. If you're going to label the chapters by the character's name, then why not keep them both the same? It didn't change what we knew or found out.
- there is a SHIT-TON of swearing here. I mean, the cover makes it look like a cutesy-mystery for 12-16 year olds, but it is NOT. It is definitely 15+, because there's sex and swearing and murder, accusing a teacher of a relationship with a student, making stereotypical, and harmful, assumptions about LGBT characters.
- and let's just pause to deal with Georgia. Who has NO qualms about looking at the French Fry Guy at the food truck at school, and saying he's the type of guy who would probably RAPE you, if you were alone together in an alley. I mean....WHAT THE F is wrong with her? Her thoughts often go off into this seriously uncomfortable tangent.
- the writing style drops weirdly long flashbacks into chapters, usually right in the middle of the characters doing something important. For example, the cops will be questioning someone, and Todd's thoughts will recall a previous interview, while we're already waiting for an answer to a question in the current interview.
- the careless, casual mention within Georgia's POV of things like cancer, rape and sex offenders, that SHE FINDS FUNNY! As someone who has had cancer, it's not something you just toss out there like a joke. EVER!
- the completely obscure choice of small vs capital letters in this one sentence : “a white woman and a Black man”. I don't know what this is suppose to mean, or if it's an honest mistake, but it felt weird.
Positives:
- strong Asian MC rep
- LGBT rep
- gay teacher and gay cop rep
- Todd.
I'm super sad that while Georgia got to let her freak flag fly for ages, Todd felt like he'd been forgotten about. It was only in the last half of the book that he showed any kind of real personality. He was constantly being labelled 'ice cold', but he warmed up in the end and I really felt connected to him. If the book had been ALL about Todd, I would absolutely have given it a 4*. But, it wasn't. It was ALL ABOUT GEORGIA, which was really disappointing.
I wanted more Todd. I wanted to see what made him tick. What he was like as an alive kid, with a crush. I wanted to see him show some damned emotion about being dead. I wanted to see him get a resolution, even as a ghost, to finding out what really happened that night, and why he was left to die. And, I want to know what REALLY happened, because we know that he died of hypothermia and that he was left to die, and we know why he was naked, but we don't know if he was naked BEFORE he died, and that actually contributed to his death. We also don't know the proper sentencing and consequences for those involved, which is super irritating.
~
Overall, Cold left me feeling exactly the opposite. I'm annoyed. Red-hot, frustrated, irritated anger at having such a promising book fail to deliver. The plot was predictable, the characters one-dimensional, the writing style and choices were odd, to say the least. Todd was weird in a normal high school kid that no one likes kind of way, while Georgia was weird in the really bad way, that left me wondering what the hell was wrong with her, and maybe I should step back because she was the kind of person to snap, inexplicably, one day and just go crazy or homicidal. Ironically.
Yeah, this isn't a book – or an author – I'll be reading again. I don't like it when people SHOUT AT ME all the time, in books. Worse, when they shout and don't seem to have anything to say. That's what this felt like. It was trying to go somewhere, and trying to say something, but just...didn't.
I wanted mystery...romance...clues and a real investigation. What I got were Todd's indistinct memories that usually had two possible meanings, cops getting nowhere with their investigation, and a rude girl getting the biggest slice of the book to tell a story that...went nowhere. The ending was lacklustre and boring, because there had been NO mystery, until that point. The plot was too obvious, from too early on. Maybe if Georgia had taken an actual interest in what happened, rather than seeing Todd's murder as some fun little anecdote to tell someone one day, it might have gone somewhere. But she didn't care about Todd any more than she cared about what gum Carrie was chewing. And, because of that, I didn't care about anything, either.
percyvale's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
_souha's review against another edition
3.0
I feel like I would've like this book a lot more if I were younger.
I don't usually care about the writing style in a book as long as it's enjoyable but this one was just a no.
To begin with, the book is told by the perspective of Todd's ghost, (yes, you read right, ghost) and Georgia who barely knew Todd and has, like, nothing to do with his murder investigation.
Then, there's what I call the YELLING CAPITAL LETTERS. There was a lot of them in this book which, again, I think I could've liked it but I just found them irritating.
All that apart, the story was entertaining and enjoyable.
The beggining was kinda slow but at some point I was really into the story and couldn't stop until I knew who was Todd's "murder".
I don't usually care about the writing style in a book as long as it's enjoyable but this one was just a no.
To begin with, the book is told by the perspective of Todd's ghost, (yes, you read right, ghost) and Georgia who barely knew Todd and has, like, nothing to do with his murder investigation.
Then, there's what I call the YELLING CAPITAL LETTERS. There was a lot of them in this book which, again, I think I could've liked it but I just found them irritating.
All that apart, the story was entertaining and enjoyable.
The beggining was kinda slow but at some point I was really into the story and couldn't stop until I knew who was Todd's "murder".
minna1999's review against another edition
3.0
This was a fun little mystery to pass the time but I feel like it was too short to have any real substance