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.
Release Date: April 24, 2012
All right. Let’s do this! Prior to reading The Immortal Rules, I had only read the first three of the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa, and those weren’t particularly my favorite. Not through any fault of her own, it is just hard for me to find a Fey series that I enjoy (Nothing will beat the FEVER Series by Karen Marie Moning. But that is another story). Either way, Kagawa has given me a new series to lust over!
The story line is an interesting mix of paranormal AND dystopian themes: the idea that the world has been overthrown by a virus (a la Partials, etc) and is now ruled by Vampires (a la Sookie Stackhouse). I have to say that this is a type of mix that I didn’t expect to buy into completely, but Kagawa’s story world is extremely well-written and I couldn’t help but love it.
The basics here is that a mortal girl becomes what she hates when faced with certain death or a life as a vampire and how she learns to live as a vampire and still cling to her humanity. The idea of “humanity” is especially in question here, because even the humans in this novel are just as evil as the vampires at times. I couldn’t help but root for Allison when those dirty bikers came upon her.
Look at her, she is such a bad ass!
Allison’s journey throughout this novel is compelling and so heart-wrenching, since she continues to sacrifice herself for those that she loves. She faces almost certain death, and still manages to have faith in herself AND faith in humanity (see, there’s humanity again).
The only thing I didn’t like about Kagawa’s AWESOME new book is the fact that the reader never really gets to hear how vampires came to be in the world to begin with (since we are to understand that they were around prior to the virus outbreak), and what the lore is within the Blood of Eden series about their existence. (I like that they cry blood. Very similiar to the Sookie Stackhouse novels, again) I hope that in the coming installments the existence of vampirism will be explained, but it still didn’t take away from my enjoyment too much.
4.5 Bards!
Moving! 