Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Title:  The Immortal Rules 

Author:  Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Harlequin Teen 
Publishing Date:  April 24th, 2012
Pages: 443

Genre: YA Paranormal Sci Fi Post Apocalyptic 

Series:  Blood of Eden
Source:  Audio

 

To survive in a ruined world, she must embrace the darkness.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them—the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.

Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend—a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for…again.

This book was a re-read for me as I read it so long ago and never read the next. So I needed to re-read this book so I can finish this series. I loved it the first time I read it and I loved it the second time I read it. I am really excited to finally go further into this series of a post apocalyptic world of vampires. 

This story takes place in a future where the world fell to vampires. They rule, they make the rules, the make sure the rules are followed and really humans don't even have basic rights. Not only are there vampires, there are things worse than vampires, the things that were rejected in the turning phase and well are just nasty evil half breed zombie vampire things. Food is scarce, people are evil because they are trying to survive, there just doesn't seemed to be any hope. That is until Allison, a street girl, turns into a vampire, makes sort of friends with her master, loses her master, joins up with a vampire hater group that is on the way to find Eden... this place that is believed to have the cure to vampirism. Hence maybe Allison can save the world... and herself. 

This book is really really good. I mean the market has been saturated with vampire books, the good vampires, the evil vampires, the magical vampires, and the gross vampires... but this story seemed to have a different and unique take on vampires. I actually really really enjoyed it... It may have helped that I haven't read a lot of vampire books lately, but I know I liked it way back when and I still loved it the second time I read it. 

The story is really in depth and there is amazing story development in this book. The world building and the story building was a lot to take in and it was a bit slow at times at the beginning, but it didn't feel like over load and all the building was worth it. I think really the entire book was just a massive build for the next two books... which I can't wait for. 

I think that everything in this book from beginning to end was complicated.... layered.... not just the story the characters too. Allison is a very hard person to like at times... not because she sucks but because she is hard, defensive, sometimes cold because of her survival skills. 

There are so many characters in this book, other than Allie, the other ones of importance are Kanin, her maker, and Zeke, a human. I really enjoyed both of these characters too. Kanin can be quite an ass... but he is a vampire and is is a very important vampire. He is a little stuffy and not much on breaking rules, but he has his reasons. He is very hard on Allie, but that is because he wants her to live. 

Zeke... well he is part of the group that is headed towards Eden. He is sweet and sensitive and a fighter. He has his part to play in the story and it's a good one. There is a romance that is started between Zeke and Allie, but it's more towards the end and takes a bit to get there. The romance felt right and not forced and not complicated but kind of complicated. I liked it. 

Really everything was wonderful in this read. The story, the characters, the romance, the world, the setting, the pacing. I loved it all and I can't wait to finally read the next book. 

Truly an amazing read for me! 

Julie Kagawa, the New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey and Blood of Eden series was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn't getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.
When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time (okay, at least the illustrations did), but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a
real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, an obnoxious cat, an Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and a hyper-active Papillion.