Cold
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A boy, a murder, a girl, a secret. From award-winning author Mariko Tamaki comes Cold, a haunting YA novel about a shocking homicide in a quiet town and four students who knew too much and said too little.
This is the story of a boy who died—and a girl who wants to know why.
Todd Mayer is dead. Now he's some sort of ghost, hovering over his body, which has just been found in the town park, naked and frozen in the snow. As detectives investigate Todd's homicide, talking to the very people who are responsible for how he died, Todd replays the events that lead him to his end in the park.
Georgia didn't know Todd. But she can’t stop thinking about him. Maybe it's because they’re both outcasts at their school, or because they’re both queer. It might also be because Georgia has a feeling she’s seen Todd somewhere before, somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.
In the vein of The Lovely Bones, this dual narrative is told through the voices of Todd in his afterlife and Georgia as she uncovers the truth behind his death, resulting in an immersive, emotional, and provocative read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the early pages of Tamaki's (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me) atmospheric murder mystery, the body of 17-year-old white high schooler Todd Mayer—a gay, frequently bullied student—is found naked and frozen in a park. Struggling to piece together what happened, especially after uncovering Todd's isolation and a homophobic bullying incident that targeted him, the detectives focus their investigation on the only teacher at Albright Academy who seems to show concern about Todd's plight. Mr. McVeeter, gay and implied white, runs the social studies tutoring program in which Todd participated. Meanwhile, classmate Georgia, who's "half Asian" and feels inexplicably connected to Todd because they are both queer, tries to make connections between the killing and something she saw. Narration alternates between the hazy third-person perspective of Todd's ghost as he watches the investigation unfold, and Georgia's chatty first-person telling. Tamaki does not shy away from depicting the effects of small-town homophobia through Todd's isolation and McVeeter's swift arrest, but glimmers of queer joy provide a balance. Though the book is at times awkwardly paced, fans of introspective mysteries such as Malinda Lo's A Line in the Dark will be invested in the book's resolution. Ages 12–up.
