A not so creepy or not spine tingling ghost story about seventeen year old Todd who is lurking around the places, watching the detectives behind who are investigating his case!

I always have a huge interest to read about ghost stories. They always give those haunted, creepy vibes and best thing about them learning their back stories and what kind of unfinished business force them to stay at limbo, unable to pass through the other reality as their soul stuck miserable at this universe.

But at this book, we have lack of information about Todd: he’s A grader,queer, bullied by classmates, loner, no social media appearance, no proper friends but that’s all! His character seems one dimensional ( also he also lost that dimension by dying frozen death)

I wish the mystery behind his death would be more interesting but it was not. Perpetrator was so obvious by suspicious acts at first chapter.

We had duel narrations: ghost of Todd: who leaves his house to catch an European movie at Revue which he lied to his mother about. And he never returned back!

The other narrator is Georgia who is also queer, recently befriended a new friend Cassie, she’s daughter of children book’s author who is using her own children as characters of retelling Hansel and Gretel. ( I sense a little Gone Girl vibes but thankfully Georgia is not cunning sociopath) Georgia is also introvert, overshadowed by athlete brother Mark who is popular, hanging out with wrong kind of friends.

I didn’t understand the main reason why she’s drawn into the mysterious death of Todd. She never knew him but she finds out he was member of all-boy’s private school just like her brother.

Georgia was a little more interesting character who found herself in high school drama between popular girls.

The execution of mystery was a little weak and as I felt like I started to connect with characters, the book already finished. It was too short.

The prejudgment about considering the queers as pervert and thinking as suspects part of the story was realistic and bold.

The conclusion was a little haphazard, lack of emotion. I didn’t feel anything about Todd or empathize with his past. The emotional depth of the story was already suffering!

But the ghost who traces his own case and a high school girl who chases his killer idea had some much potential. Concept was good but execution was mediocre which earned my 2.5 stars rounded up 3 queer, thought provoking, ghost story, high school drama stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group/ Roaring Brook Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

For a book about death, told "in the vein of The Lovely Bones," it just... didn't make me sad? I think there was potential there, but the writing ultimately fell short.

I did like the commentary about prejudice against the LGBTQ community in the justice system, and how the "queer men are pedophiles" very much affects queer men in the justice system. I thought it was well done, and the most compelling of the sub-plots in this book.

My one big annoyance with this book is how the writer utilizes capital letters to emphasize words and emotion in a sentence. This is a very... beginners chapter books thing to do, before children learn the nuances of how to read tone. In a YA book it feels very out of place, childish, and tacky to read.

Overall, I just wasn't compelled by the two main characters at all. I feel like we didn't learn enough of the little important details; instead their characterizations were very surface level. Pretty much every expectation I had for this book unfortunately fell short.

Cold by Mariko Tamaki is a slow-paced mystery novel about two teenage outcasts, one of whom was murdered, and how their lives are intertwined- even though they didn't know each other.

The story is told in two perspectives, Georgia's and Todd's. Georgia is the daughter of a successful children's book author and goes to an all-girl's private school where she only has one friend. Todd is an only child and went to an all-boy's private school, at least until he was killed. Georgia's perspective mostly tells about her life at school and at home. She feels drawn to Todd for some reason after hearing about him on the news, despite having never met him. Todd's perspective is all about him watching over his own murder case. He follows the two detectives in charge of the case and watch them try to piece it together.

This story was intriguing and kept me wondering what was going to happen, although at times it felt as though it was dragging on. Halfway through the book we had learned almost nothing about what had happened to Todd and at that point most of what we had discovered was that Todd had no friends and no online presence. Even though that was stated pretty openly in the first few chapters of the book. And it kept going that way until about 75% of the way through the book. At that point things picked up and everything finished up quickly.

The characters didn't really stand out to me as protagonists of the story. Georgia was fun to read about, as caught up in her high school drama as she was. Though that was due to her friend and the drama going on with her being interesting. It felt like a lot of Georgia's personality was being uncertain if her friend was actually her friend and how much she hated her mom's books. And Todd felt as though he was just a background character and like we were reading the detectives' perspectives as opposed to his own. He would fill in the gaps with memories that the detectives couldn't get but he didn't really have much of a personality. He felt very apathetic about a lot of the issues and toward his own death. I felt more interested in the detectives and in Georgia's friends and family at points, as that's what it felt like the story was focused on.

Typically I'm not a fan of books with so much of a slow build, but this one had such an interesting ending that it was worth it for me. While some things about it left me feeling a little underwhelmed I really did love the ending of the book. Overall, the story was enjoyable and fun to read.