The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden, # 1)
By: Julie Kagawa
Published: April 24th 2012 by Harlequin Teen
485 pages
Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you, Harlequin!)
Goodreads description--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.
Enter Julie Kagawa's dark and twisted world as an unforgettable journey begins.
The Immortal Rules is about a world that's dominated by vampires and creatures called rabids, that didn't quite make it into vampires. But don't get confused, this isn't a book about sparkly, animal-blood-drinking vampires. No sir (not that I mind that kind personally). There are no short cuts for these vampires. Sure they can physically down animal blood to the point of having a right sloshy belly, but animal blood in no way satisfies the Hunger.
Kanin, Allison's maker, tries to tell her this when she awakens after being turned. He tries to teach her all sorts of lessons ranging from vampire history to sword fighting to hunting and feeding. However, some lessons (most apparently) have to be learned the hard way. After Kanin and Allison get separated, Allison has to learn to make it on her own as a newly turned vampire. But what she finds is a reason to live--to keep pressing on.
Allison was really the only character I truly connected with while reading The Immortal Rules. I wanted to like the others, even Zeke, but something just kept standing in the way for me. I pretty much hated Stick, and while I can applaud Allison for her compassion and I think it was necessary to show her humanity--that she wasn't a completely jaded human being--before her change, I would have thrown Stick to the wolves a long time ago. Kanin, I wanted to connect with more, and maybe that's going to be possible with book 2, The Eternity Cure, but I just didn't. And the same goes for Zeke. I can't really explain why, but I just didn't quite understand them. I can appreciate the reasons why Allison likes Zeke, but the emotions just didn't filter through the book and into me like they normally do. I don't think the reader was really supposed to connect too much to any of the other characters, except perhaps Caleb.
I definitely enjoyed the step away from the sexy vampire bad-boy who falls for the human girl. The Immortal Rules was certainly different from any other YA vampire book I've read, but it was very similar to the movie Daybreakers. So The Immortal Rules wasn't a completely new concept for me.
Overall, I'd give The Immortal Rules 3.5 Stars. And I am interested in seeing what happens in book 2, The Eternity Cure. Have you read The Immortal Rules? If so, what did you think? Let me know!
I really liked this book. I liked it better than the second one, although the second was a great sequel (as I know sequels often fall short). Sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as I did. I thought Allison was a kick butt heroine. Although, I'm not a huge fan of Zeke.
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