Title: The Immortal Rules
Author:
Julie Kagawa
Genre:
YA, fantasy (vampires), dystopian
Series: #1 Blood of Eden
Publisher:
Harlequin Teen
DOP:
2012
Pages:
485
Rating:
5/5
ISBN:
978-0-373-21051-0
Twitter: @Jkagawa
Vampires rule the cities, keeping all humans inside the city’s walls to protect them from a rabid’s attack and ensuring themselves to have humans at their back and call whenever they are thirsty. Allie, being an Unregistered human, and thus being off the vampire radar in the city, has only herself and her group of survivors to rely on. With food being scarce, Allie is constantly on the look out, searching new places for edible food. One day, she finds herself in food heaven and driven by hunger, she guides her group towards it. But then, fate strikes and Allie finds herself wounded and in a desperate state, until she meets Kanin.
The only other book I’ve read by Julie Kagawa, was The Iron King, the first book in her Iron Fey series, a few months ago and let’s just say that I wasn’t overly excited. Hence, it’s the reason why I have yet to write my review because I can’t pinpoint what I disliked exactly. So I was sceptical when my best friend recommended the Blood of Eden series. I seriously doubted her sanity at this point but she offered me the first book and here I am, definitely a lot more excited about this than I was with The Iron King!
The Immortal Rules is the cocktail of fantasy I have been waiting for since Twilight* by Stephenie Meyer. Scratch that. It’s the fantasy I was dreaming of while reading Twilight and only realising afterwards there was something missing! There’s action (which, let’s be honest Twilight lacked…) and adventure and although there’s romance in it too, it’s not over-the-top-romanticised like Twilight either. It’s realistic, as far as fantasy can be realistic and yes, sometimes it might be a bit predictable but I can’t have it all, can I? This world is full of tension and attacks but it’s always nicely balanced out with a moment of relaxation, helping the readers to catch their breaths and refocus again. This book is the perfect example on how a story should be built. Let me show with a graphic:
Rabids are the equivalent of zombies and the vampires have a hierarchy. A hierarchy! That’s right. It’s the first time I’ve read about a vampire hierarchy. Normally, they are just the dominating race (in secret). Now they’re just that: dominating the world! Hell to the yeah! Actually, Rabids are sort of dominating this world too. Scary creatures….very scary creatures. Especially when they bite you.
Without revealing too much about plot twists I really liked being able to read a vampire story from a different point of view. The emotions Allie went through fitted perfectly and were exactly what I imagined it would be like. No disappointments there. The priest was a nicely added bonus. Despite me hating him to extremes, I could imagine his character in this world, guiding the humans to ‘Utopia’ or Eden in this scenario. He was a nice representation of all those who only see black and white and never grey. And don’t get me started on Zeke. He can be my boyfriend any time. *fangirl crush*
Besides world domination by vampires, this story actually has a decent plot in which romance is not the key element. Vampires are searching for the answer on how they can reproduce without creating a mutant off-spring (aka a rabid) while humans are searching for a way out and Allie, well, she finds herself in the middle of this mess.
I would recommend this book to anyone who’d like to read a fantasy about vampires and zombies rabids that includes action, a bit of romance and a few life lessons on how to open up your mind, broaden your horizons and don’t always accept what people are telling you what’s good and what isn’t.
*I’m not a Twilight hater, I liked it enough to read the series twice and went to marathons in the theatre but honestly, it had flaws. A lot of flaws and since it’s written in the same fantasy genre (vampires obviously) I can’t help but compare it with. Especially since everyone knows Twilight. Don’t kill me!
A bookish journey 