I flew through this fast-paced mystery/thriller by Mariko Tamaki. It kept me at the edge of my seat and I loved that it was introspective and character-focused as opposed to solving the whodunit. I thought the dual POVs worked well, one being from perspective of Todd's ghost and the other our main character Georgia. Tamaki also raises some important LGBTQ+ questions/commentary in this book, which I appreciate.

I do think the ending was slightly rushed-we're almost just told what happens. It also took me a while to get used to Tamaki's writing style as it felt more juvenile and ramble-y, though some of Georgia's thoughts/one-liners are hilarious. But overall, this was a fun and enjoyable read.

This book was a bit different than I expected, though I'm not exactly sure what I expected. Told between Todd's ghost after he was murdered and Georgia a girl who doesn't seem to be connected to anything, the pieces of this crime come together slowly. I loved all of the times the cold popped up, though I'm not sure if I'm reading into that too much, but it feels like part of the journey of reading this text.

While I usually love Mariko Tamaki's work, I was unfortunately a little disappointed with Cold. I was very happy to see LGBTQ representation, and I am a big fan of mysteries, but this novel is not as spooky and suspenseful as I had hoped it would be.

While this was a quick read that I did enjoy, for me Cold by Mariko Tamaki fell just short of expectations. This YA thriller/ghost story had a lot of potential but ultimately failed to land a solid punch.

Cold follows Todd, who after being murdered follows the days following his death as a ghost, and Georgia who feels drawn to a boy she did not know and the truth about what happened his final night. This novel used The Lovely Bones as a comp and while I did get small flashes that reminded me of the work, for me it lacked the emotional depth that made The Lovely Bones impactful. Todd and Georgia, felt more defined by the actions of others around them, rather than having their own personas to stand on. The style of writing was also very interesting in that it didn't always feel coherent and rather more like a stream of consciousness with incomplete thoughts and abrupt changes in tone/topic. This could be a stylistic choice or something that gets fixed in edits. In the end while I don't regret reading Cold and the mystery was fun to follow, it was hard to have an actual connection to either narrator and the ending felt rushed and tied up too neatly.

Perfect for true crime and noir fans (especially if you love the movie Brick), Cold by Mariko Tamaki unspools a story of teenage intrigue and outsiders with interlocking narrators--one of whom is a ghost. This novel is infused with winter chill, so the moments of heartfelt desire and longing blaze bright when they happen. Great for high school students interested in LGBTQ+ books, mystery novels, and prep school stories!

Mariko Tamaki’s dialogue is flawless. Chapters narrated by Georgia are funny and fresh, while those told through the perspective of Todd, a murdered teen, provide an aching contrast. A rewarding read for fans of Tamaki’s comics including Laura Dean and queer YA fiction.

This was a good book with a heart pounding, page turning ending. Georgia is a high school student at an all girls' school with an older brother who is a senior at an all boys' school. She isn't one of the popular kids, and one day her classmate Carrie sits in the back of the class with her. A joke is shared and they are friends from that moment on. Todd is dead. Mark, Georgia's brother, is Todd's classmate. When the detectives come to the school to ask questions, no one talks. There's an undertone, you know there's more to the story, and Mariko Tamaki brings it to the surface gradually. The story is told, in alternating chapters, by Todd's ghost and Georgia. The tension builds to a resounding finish. Todd is dead. Georgia wants to know why.

The mention of a story told from a boy who died and a girl trying to find out why gave me high hopes for Cold by Mariko Tamaki. I had hoped that this young adult novel would be super mysterious, but sadly, Cold fizzled out pretty quickly for me. I continued to read to get to the "who done it" portion and finding out what actually happened didn't make me like the novel more. The ending seemed rushed, and the reason why the boy died did not satisfy this reader.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It was good. Not great, but good. A tad wordy at times, but something I think my teens would enjoy reading.

Despite knowing the premise of this book going in, this story was a lot darker than I thought it was going to be. Which, honestly isn't the wrong tone, because ultimately this *is* a story about a dead boy.
It's also though a story about two people, Georgia and Todd, one living and one dead, whose lives overlap in strange and terrible ways. Two people who are desperate to tell their own stories about themselves. The story crept forward into a shocking ending that lets the book come full circle as the circumstances around Todd's death are answered, and offers up a lasting mark of how Todd's death and Georgia's life are intertwined. I did though feel like the story was missing something, and I'm not really sure what. Some other layer to Georgia perhaps, or something else? I think the themes this book covers are really interesting, and I enjoyed them, I just wish they could've been developed a little further.

Thanks to Macmillan and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this to review! I only know Mariko Tamaki from her graphic novel work, so I was interested in seeing how her novel writing played out. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

At the core, this sounds like a story I would love. A murder mystery about outcasts, trying to get their story right because they can’t. The premise is fascinating and wonderful, and I do think Tamaki captures that feeling pretty well in the book. It feels a bit dark, a bit foreboding. The imagery descriptions are really well done.

However, the characters fell flat to me. I think the book is too short to really flesh anyone out, which made the story overall fall flat for me. It is a quick read, but it just felt like there was something missing in the story. Adding more details and giving the characters more space to breathe would have made the story stronger, too.

Additionally, the mystery itself was almost a bit anticlimactic. I think it might have been a little purposeful, but I wanted something more at the ending of the book. Overall, it just generally fell flat for me.

This is ultimately a sad, introspective book. Something about it didn't work well for me, I felt like maybe it's too short or didn't go in depth enough into the characters? Absolutely the likening to The Lovely Bones is apt, but to me it missed that emotional punch that TLB was.

I enjoyed the setting and the distinctive voices of the main characters! The cover was distinctive too.

Strange and compelling and engaging like all of Mariko's works -- no matter the story she's telling, readers are certain to be drawn into her world and invested in her characters.

Thanks to Roaring Brook Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book prior to publication. I was interested in reading this because I like mysteries and I loved Lumberjanes. This book is about a high school boy who is killed late one night. The story is told from the point of view of the ghost of the boy, Todd, and the sister of one of his classmates, Georgia. I liked Georgia's chapters much better - the chapters told by Todd were very strange, like they were trying to accomplish too much. This could have been a better book if told from the POV of some of the other kids or even the detectives. The author also used a capital letters for emphasis quite a bit, which was distracting. There is a good LGBTQ storyline, and the mystery itself was interesting, but the writing from Todd's POV fell flat for me.

Todd was a lonely, brilliantly smart teenager. When he awakens on a cold January morning dead, his consciousness follows detectives as they piece together what happened in Todd’s final days. Georgia finally has a friend she is close to and high school seems a little bit less awful. When she becomes obsessed with the death of a student at a nearby school, she uncovers uncomfortable truths about the people in her life.

Cold is a dark teen crime novel that explores friendship. Sometimes people will do anything for a friend despite that person being most unfriendlike. The characters struggle to make the right choices and it is complicated when the desires of others we want to please don’t match up. Cold explores what happens when we push friendship away as easily as accept the wrong friends. With Mariko Tamaki’s signature snarky narrative voice, Todd and Georgia depict a startling, all too real image of high school that isn’t a place to grow and thrive, but a place to just get through- to just survive.

Cold is a dark novel that would be great for teens interested in crime and mystery. The dark subject matter is something to consider when recommending, in addition to swearing and sexual content. If the audience can handle the content, Cold would make an excellent book for group discussions about morality and making the right choices, differing experiences of the characters, and the symbolism that is woven throughout the story.

I posted this review to Goodreads and will actively recommend Cold to readers who can handle the dark subject matter.

Snuggled down, following the story as it unfolded, the symbolism of the isolation, insecurity, and messiness of the young lives suddenly hit me... I see the loneliness; the "waiting for things to get better" in my students as they go through each school day -- it chilled me. The family dynamics are relatable as are the different levels of relationships throughout the novel--including the ones that are glaringly absent as well as the ones that are formed out of convenience.
Tamaki's writing is thoughtful, surprisingly funny in a dark situation, and it doesn't follow the standard mystery formula. I can't wait to promote Cold in my high school library.

This is my first introduction to Mariko Tamaki's works, and I am delighted to come across this evocative novel, despite feeling a bit underwhelmed by it.

I loved the alternate use of first and third POVs by the main characters. I've never encountered such, hence it was a delight to experience it for the first time. The prose was good but felt short when it came to Georgia's POV. There was something missing or detached from her personality that didn't exactly resonate to me. It also came as a surprise that this book wasn't as suspenseful as the blurb promised it to be, but I loved how instropective the atmosphere was. In terms of its ending, I can't exactly say that it was a satisfying one because I often leave that to readers to decide if it is, but one thing's for sure; it doesn't have an explosive or jaw-dropping ending that will grip you, but it does evoke thoughts on the book's central themes.

Cold is an interesting YA book about a kid who is killed and follows his ghost watching what happens after. It is told from two points of view so it alternated chapters which I really enjoyed. By far, my favorite character in the story is the sister of one of the four boys being looked at for the crime. Her chapters were the best. While she does not know who the victim is, she does know she has seen him at one time. I can't say much more without ruining it. The story is very short, and while I wish it had been a bit longer, there was not much more to tell so I see why they ran it short. The author is a great storyteller and I look forward to reading more of their work.

Mariko Tamaki is best known for her wonderful graphic novel collaborations (This One Summer, Skim, and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me), and this second (I think) YA novel is equally evocative and atmospheric.

The naked body of high school senior, Todd, is found in the snow in the park of a small community. His ghost watches as Detectives Greevy and Daniels investigate his death, filling in the details that they fail to elicit.

In alternating chapters, Georgia, who goes to the same school, watches the investigation from afar while uncomfortably noting the similarities between herself and Todd. They were both ostracized and isolated loners and, possibly connected, they are/were both queer. The connection Georgia feels with Todd deepens when she realizes that she has another connection with him, one that the police don’t seem to know about.

Todd is mostly a passive observer, one who doesn’t bring feelings to what he’s observing - after all, he’s dead. Georgia is the one who feels the need to find out what happened, to explain why Todd was targeted, because she could be him. As with Tamaki’s other novel, Saving Montgomery Sole, small town homophobia and hypocrisy are exposed, in this novel with the gay teacher Mr McVeeter as well as with Todd himself.

The chill of the snow is echoed in the cold that both Todd and Georgia feel at school. Though Mr McVeeter tries to reassure Todd that high school isn’t life, that things will get better, Todd, as many others before and after him, finds that hard to believe, though he does observe the happy home life of Detective Daniels with his chubby red-haired boyfriend.

This is a slight novel which leaves a lot for readers to fill in for themselves, but in a thoughtful rather than sloppy way. The mystery is resolved but Georgia and Todd, and the reader, find no satisfaction from that.

Thanks to Roaring Brook and Netgalley for the digital review copy.