Early Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
Blood of Eden #1
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.
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.
Alison lives on the fringes of society as she refuses to be cattle for the vampires that rule the city. To survive, most humans allow themselves to be branded and their blood taken in exchange for rations of food and safety. However, Alison knows better. That promise of safety is just empty words as registered people still go missing daily. Life is hard for her as she starves a little more each day scavenging for food, but at least her life belongs to her. That all changes when she is brutally attacked and given the choice of becoming the very thing she hates, or to die with her soul intact. In her moment of weakness she chooses immortality. With nothing more than a crash course in survival with her new status, she is forced out beyond the walls that protect them from the rabids, mindless beasts who kill vampires and humans alike. Her only hope at survival is to join a rag tag team of humans with their own mission. It will take everything she has to ensure her true nature isn't discovered, for that would mean an instant death, and this time there's no coming back.
Now that I've gotten the description out of the way, let me just start off by saying that I absolutely loved the mythology behind this world. The Immortal Rules has two of my favorite paranormal elements, vampires and zombies. In fact it takes things a step further by having zombie vampires. Yep, that's right ZOMPIRES! The funny thing is that I didn't put that together in my head at first. I just saw the rabids as nasty, killer creatures to be feared. Then all of a sudden it clicked in my head that they were Zompires and I was instantly in love. Seriously, when you picture Vamps, you typically expect them to be the top of the food chain, so it was really great to see them at risk too. Granted, they still lorded over the humans, who were treated no better than glorified cattle, but that didn't make them any less trapped behind the city walls.
I really loved watching Allie's character progression in The Immortal Rules. I found it a little ironic that she seemed more human by the end of the book than she did at the start, especially since she was still mortal at that point. Granted, she did want to do anything she could to help humanity overcome their oppression, but that really was only a pipe dream, as she was really only focused on her own survival. Although we do get a glimpse of her sacrificial nature early on, it isn't until the end that it really shows. Well, perhaps that isn't true either as that protective nature is pretty consistent throughout, it's just that it gets a little overshadowed by her battle with controlling the monster inside her. Her guilt at becoming what she hated the most won't let her see past the bad, to all the good she can and will do with her new found strength. In fact, I think she may now be in a position to actually make the changes for humanity that she desired early on, but only time will tell.
I'm not really sure why, but I somehow expected The Immortal Rules to be similar to Julie's other series, The Iron Fey, when the actuality is that they couldn't possibly be more different. The Immortal Rules is so much darker, and has a gritty, raw, bare bones aspect that will literally grab a hold of you with an iron fist. I was utterly captivated from the very start, and couldn't recommend it any higher! With a killer mythology (literally), awesome characters, a little romance, and heart pounding action, what isn't there to love about The Immortal Rules? This series will definitely be going on my auto-buy list!
(Received a copy from Netgalley)
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