Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

From Goodreads: 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.

My Rating: 4 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: Having never read The Iron Fey series, I was pretty excited to hear that Julie Kagawa would be coming out with a brand new series – this time revolving around vampires – for two reasons: 1) I’d finally get a chance to read her writing without feeling the pressure to get caught up with the entire series and 2) I like vampires better than faeries.

In The Immortal Rules, Kagawa lets readers meet Allie, a girl who chooses to become a vampire as she lies dying and subsequently struggles to hold onto her humanity. I found the first part of the novel to be kind of slow since it basically chronicles Allie’s transformation and her learning what it means to be a vampire from Kanin, her sire. However, it does allow the reader to learn about the mythology behind Kagawa’s vampires and rabids and get an accurate picture of just how bleak life for humans is. Not only do humans face the threat of vampires, raiders and rabids, but it’s a time of scarcity and illiteracy as well because books are banned and food is strictly rationed.

As a character, I admired Allie because she’s so scrappy. I also really liked that Allie doesn’t have blinders on when it comes to her relationships. She’s very aware that as an immortal and a predator, there are fundamental differences between her and the humans she interacts with. This is why I enjoyed the romance – there’s attraction and a simultaneous desire to drain Zeke (who I thought had less personality than Darren) dry.

As much as I liked Allie though, my two favourite characters were Kanin and Sarren. I feel as if there’s still a lot more to be learned about Kanin, and I liked Sarren because he’s a little psycho. Who doesn’t enjoy unpredictable characters?

A great start to Kagawa’s newest series, The Immortal Rules was released by Harlequin Teen in April 2012.

Comments About the Cover: It’s easy to tell that The Immortal Rules involves vampires. It’s kind of sad though that the publisher chose to use a Caucasian model rather than an Asian one. 

In exchange for an honest review, this ARC was received from the publisher (Harlequin Teen) for free via NetGalley.