A review by asparagusisreading
Cold by Mariko Tamaki

dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the Fiercereads team for this e-arc to read and review.
 
Cold by Mariko Tamaki is a young adult mystery following the perspectives of Todd Mayer, the ghost of a teen that was recently found dead, and Georgia, another teen that has decided to start her own investigation and find out what happened to Todd. Along the way, there are more connections between Georgia and Todd than she realized. That premise is intriguing and was what really drew me into the story however, the execution of it did not keep me interested. For starters, I did not understand what Georgia’s motivations were to investigate. She really had no connections to Todd (that we knew of.) Then when the investigation started, she really wasn’t investigating. She was living her life like normal,  picking up on some suspicious behaviors, and the mystery was told to you. The last 20% went really quickly where all of the remaining information was thrown at the reader, again told not solved. It felt like more of the investigation was done on Todd’s end who really wasn’t looking, it was like he just happened to overhear conversations and remember the last few days before his death. I don’t think the shorter length of this book worked in its favor. If there were another 50-100 pages, it would have helped the pacing of the story and allowed for more character development.
 
The title of this book is Cold. I think this word, this title, works really well for the book for multiple reasons. For starters, the book takes place in the winter the main character that is found dead is cold. As you know, dead bodies are cold to the touch as cold as ice. if I remember correctly, he froze to death or parts of him was frozen after his death. Some chapters are told in his perspective, and they do feel a bit cold as you would assume and feel reading from a ghost perspective. The story itself feels a bit cold, in terms of feeling detached and disconnected from the characters while reading. Even though I wanted Georgia to continue the investigation and find out the truth, I wasn’t necessarily rooting for her or holding my breath in fear, suspense, or concern for what could happen next. Despite the story and murder investigation being centered around Todd, I felt like I didn’t learn many details about him. It was like watching a documentary about his murder where I may feel sympathy, anger, etc about the case but no real connection to him. There could have been some commentary on how this boy died and no one is effected or seems to care, how cold and cruel people were to him before and after his passing but that didn’t really happen.

There was a sex scene between two characters that lost me. Not only did it feel out of the blue but it felt wrong. Both characters and been drinking, one talked about how drunk she is, one cried, and neither really seemed happy to have been intimate.

Some of this I noticed has been mentioned in other reviews and I feel conflicted about it. This could have been intentional writing on the author’s part and if so, it was good I would give it a higher rating. But if it wasn’t, instead being a book where it fell flat for me and I lost interest since I like more of character/emotional driven story, then I’d rate this lower. Overall, Cold had an intriguing premise but I felt it was lacking in some aspects, 3 stars.
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