The Immortal Rules: review

Title: The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden #1)

Author: Julie Kagawa

Genres: urban fantasy, vampires, dystopia,

Summary: In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity. 

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire 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 is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn’t easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

I can easily say this is the best vampire book I’ve ever read. I mean, I enjoy a good many, and a few here and there are pretty great, but even so, they’re all just a little indulgent distraction from better books out there. But The Immortal Rules is just awesome.

Now I will try to convey its awesomeness. It came out a couple months ago now, and I’ve read probably over 30 reviews on various blogs raving about it. So if I’m repeating lots of what you’ve heard already about the book, I’m just backing up the claims. ;)

One of the capturing aspects of The Immortal Rules is the switching of classic ya gender roles. Allie is the scary monster capable of killing and all that jazz. And Zeke is the gentle and too-kind human Allie kind of falls for. She is all crazy cool with her katana flying through the air and beheading bad guys, while Zeke hates to kill when he is faced with the choice. Those are just a couple of examples I can recall at the moment.

Another unique part, is that this is technically a dystopian novel as well. If you think about it, paranormal and dystopia don’t usually mix. Does it work? Yes it does! It allowed her to write the rules of her own world without it being fantasy or anything, or limiting the situations to everyday problems, like sparklyness on sunny days at school, (cough).

The mythology Allie is a part of (the vampires!), is fantastic. And my favorite detail makes my whole view of the book cover change. But I don’t really want to say, because it’s fun to learn alongside her; the ways vampires unlive, and survive, and how they can be killed, or tortured. I can tell Kagawa was having lots of fun creating it all.

The Immortal Rules is on the longer side, for general ya books. Almost 500 pages. But I found myself trying to slow down my reading, because it was so exciting to read, I didn’t want it to be over. I loved every page, and I hope the next book is as good as this one.

Julie Kagawa is apparently pretty a pretty established author in the faerie genre already. A fact, I sadly admit, I had never even heard of, before seeing all the publicity for this book. Now after reading this, I am definitely going to check out her Iron Fey series.

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Post Script:

I have a copy of Crossed by Ally Condie that I want to do a giveaway for soon. For any blogger who reads this, who is possibly interested in hosting a giveaway for me, please shoot me an email! 

-Jane