Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa




Book Synopsis:

"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."- from Goodreads.com



Rating:


5 Inky Black Hearts out of 5!!

I Loved It!


What I Thought:

This was way better than I ever expected it to be! Most YA vampire books just don't really speak to me, they're all like Twilight in my opinion. Not that there's anything really wrong with Twilight, I just really get annoyed with shiny vampires after a while. This book took me back to the days of reading about vampires that kick ass and are not nice. I appreciate that. 

The setting of this book is in a dystopian world ruled by vampires. A horrible disease broke out 60 years in the past, called The Red Lung, and killed off quite a bit of Earth's population. In an attempt to cure the disease scientists accidentally created a creature called the Rabid. It's kind of like a zombie, but not really, though it is a dead reanimated human that wants to tear your face off. I have to admit the past few night after reading these books I've been a bit paranoid about seeing these things in real life outside at night. 

Yeah the book got to me that much. This doesn't happen often. There was a definite creepy factor here which is awesome.


Character Summaries:

Allie: Hardcore, strong, beautiful, defiant, passionate, caring. I loved this character. Any katana wielding girl vampire wins in my mind.
Stick: I wouldn't even mention him, but I have to, because I've never HATED a character so much in my life. I literally wanted to reach into the pages and reamed his scrawny little neck for being such a parasitic little idiot.
Kanin: I love Kanin, he's got that vampire nonchalant quality to him. But deep down you can tell he cares about people, and that he has some kind of passion. 
Zeke: It took me a bit to like this guy. He's a bit naive in his beliefs, but damn his he handsome. 
Ruth: Want. To. Stab. Her. That is all. Though props for what she does to save her brother. 
Jeb: Reminds me of the other cult leaders of the world, but in the end I liked him. 
Caleb: Such an adorable little boy. I just want to scoop him up and squeeze him. 


Now on to the actual story itself. Allie is a Fringer, she lives with other Fringers who are Unregistered. This means that they don't really 'exist' in their society, they refuse to fall under vampire rule. They still live in the city, but they are not very welcomed and have to scavenge for their supplies. Allie has a very strong personality and she's a strong willed girl when it comes down to it. She can defend herself, takes care of herself, and has survived this long without the help of others. 

On the day that she decides to lead her group out into the Ruins to find the food storage she previously ran into, her whole world is just ripped apart. Turning into a vampire, the very things she loathes  was not in the plans. It's very interesting to see how she struggles with being a vampire, yet trying to maintain some sort of humanity. The inner struggle she has with her Hunger is probably one of the most interesting parts of this book.

I have to mention Kanin here, even though he isn't present during a lot of the book. I love the whole fatherly vampire character. You can just tell that deep down in there somewhere Kanin really does care about Allie. I also had a slight little fictional character crush going on with him. I really hope the next book has a lot more Kanin in it!

When Allie has to take off on her own she runs into a group of humans looking for this place called Eden. At first I was a little irritated with the religious references, but I quickly got over that. There are far too many interesting points made about the beliefs these humans have, and what Eden really is. It's very interesting to me from a religious studies type of standpoint. 

I really loved the group dynamic of the humans that Allie travels with. The development of the characters is so well done it just adds to the surreal feeling I got while reading this book. Julie's writing style is perfect in my opinion  it wasn't too overly descriptive but just right. The story was face paced to me, though others have complained about the length and how hard it was for them to get into it. I never had this problem, the story sucked me in. Maybe that's because I'm used to reading really long books, I'm not sure.

I give this book 5 inky black hearts! I loved it, and I can not keep my mind out of the world that Julie created! I keep seeing Rabids coming at me in my dreams. Ugh. 

Seriously though, you want a good vampire book? Go out and read this!


Where To Buy It:




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