Title: The Immortal RulesAuthor: Julie Kagawa
Published: April 24th 2012
By: Harlequin
From: netgalley
First line: They hung the unregistered in the old warehouse district; it was a public execution, so everyone went to see.
Last line: Looking up at the approaching rabids, I smiled.
Fave line: Sorry, too many!!
Anyone who reads the blog will know that I tend to go a tad, okay, more than a tad fangirly over anything written by Julie Kagawa. I absolutely loved the Iron Fey series, am a staunch member of Team Ash and have spent the last year or so convincing everyone I know of their need to buy the series. I was therefore really excited to hear that Kagawa was moving on to the world of vampires, mainly because if anyone was going to be able to put a new twist on the genre it was going to be her. Indeed The Immortal Rules was one of my most anticipated of 2012 and boy I was not disappointed!
Kagawa begins the first of the Blood of Eden series in the city of New Covington where our main female protagonist Allison Sekemoto lives on the fringe of society. There are choices you can make in this city which is run by vampires. You can be a feeder and be entitled to the trappings that come with the role or you can be an unregistered. Whilst being an unregistered means that you are free of the vampires it also means that survival is near impossible. Life is spent scavenging to survive and death is an everyday fact. Whilst out searching for resources Allison and the gang that she lives with are attacked by rabids (half zombie, half vampire) and Allison is left badly injured and facing an almost impossible decision. She can be Turned into a vampire by the bloodsucker that has saved her or die. Allison chooses to survive.
The story follows Allison as she makes the transition in to the vampire world as she is taught how to survive by Kanin, her saviour and now mentor. We see how she struggles to align herself with the vampires who are responsible for the death of her parents and how she tries to maintain her own sense of humanity even as she moves further away from the mortal world.
I love this book! I like that in Allison we have a butt-kicking heroine who is trying to be the best version of herself that she can be sticking to her human principles even when it seems impossible. That doesn’t mean she always succeeds, and it was intriguing to read the process that Allison goes through as she tries to fight back against her dark side. And in this book the vampires certainly are dark! There’s some amazing action in this story and I loved the transient nature of Allison’s relationships as she realises that forging a bond with anyone is pointless and more to the point dangerous for the other party – she is after all a predator. As she evolves so do the people she finds herself surrounded by from the vulnerable Stick who was her friend whilst she was mortal, to her guide to the vampire world, Kanin to Zeke. Zeke is one of a gang of mortals who are trying to find Eden, a place which legend has it is vampire free. Somehow Allison ends up on the journey with them and a relationship develops between Allison and Zeke on the way but whether it can survive when Zeke finds out what she is? Well that’s for you to find out. You can’t help but feel for Allison knowing that the mortal world that she still relates to so much considers her to be nothing more than a beast and this is compounded as you watch her struggle with her new immortality and her sometimes obsessive need to feed which is to her nothing short of repulsive.
I love that the story has a dystopian setting. Kagawa has created a world here which adds a nice twist to all vampyric tales that have gone before. Everything is so easy to conjure up in your mind and I loved the main characters, particularly Stick for some reason.... I hope he gets a break! I also liked Kanin and Zeke and I’m really looking forward to reading more about them in future instalments. As for Allison – the YA genre now has a new heroine and she is fierce! Book two now please!!
Rating: 5/5. I loved this book sooo much! Can’t wait to get my hands on the next instalment!!
2 comments:
I loved this one too! It was amazing, I'm already looking forward to the sequel. Allison was an awesome character. Great review!
great review! I really loved this one too which is unusual for me as I usually shy away from vamp books. I thought it was very classical and awesomely written! Glad you loved it too!
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