Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Summary (from goodreads): 

To survive in a ruined world, she must embrace the darkness…

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in 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 dies and becomes one of the monsters.

Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend—a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for… again.

Enter Julie Kagawa's dark and twisted world as an unforgettable journey begins.
 

Rating: 5 stars

My Review: 

Let me just say right here and now...that THIS BOOK IS THE BOMB!!!! (cue firework noises) 

When I first picked up The Immortal Rules, I was like, "Oh, okay. Ms. Kagawa wrote this." By this time, I had already devoured her Iron Fey series and was completely in love with the characters. So I open the book and BOO-YAH! I see it is about vampires. 

Now let me tell you something about books about vampires. You got the Twilight saga, the Vampire Diaries series, etc. Some of my friends love Twilight and I acknowledge them for that. However, I am not a vampire gal fan. Before you guys jump me, let me just say I respect all of you who read the vampire books listed but you won't find me panting to get a hold of these books. 

So you can imagine how surprised I am that Ms. Kagawa had written a vampire book. And because it is the amazing Ms. Kagawa, I found myself opening the book and reading the first pages. In my head I was wondering: Can she pull this off? Can she create a kickass, fantasy world full of crazed vampires and humans trying to survive? 

The answer: HELL YES. 

This woman has done a spectacular job with this book. So good that I even did a book talk on it for my English assignment. And when I do a book talk on a book, you know it means something good. :) 

The book is about a girl named Allie Sekemoto who lives in a dark, future world where vampires rule. (I never thought the phrase, "vampires rule" would ever pass my lips.) But it happens. The world is now a faded shell of what it used to be with deserted cars and abandoned houses everywhere. Humanity has fallen and now the supernatural has taken over. 

There are a few cities left in the world and they are run by vampires. No humans live outside because the world is overrun with rabids, these hunch-backed monsters that will tear you to shreds. The surviving humans all live in the cities but here's where things get complicated. There are two types of humans who live in these cities. They are the Unregistered and Registered. Registered humans are allowed to have food, water and shelter but ONLY if they give their blood to vampires on a monthly basis. They are the ones treated like cattle. Blood cattle. 

Then you got the Unregistered. The humans that live on the edge of the cities that do not share their blood with the vampires. They are not allowed food and shelter--they have to find it on their own. Serious consequences arise if you are caught stealing. 

Our main character, Allie, is an Unregistered. The one thing I love most about her is how strong she is. Not just physically (she does have muscles) but she is mentally robust as well. She laughs in the face of danger and does what is necessary. She is street-smart and cool and I want to be her best friend. 

But of course, things go awry and on one such hunt for food, Allie is bitten and becomes a vampire. From then on, she becomes the supernatural and hates herself for it. Then, like the summary above says, she has to leave the city, the only home she knows. 

I don't want to give away too much but this book is a heart-pounding, relentless, action-filled journey. You are literally there with Allie, fighting alongside her against the rabids and other dangers. And gosh...don't even get me started on the world-building. Some authors can make you feel like you're right there, in that dark world of theirs. Julie Kagawa is one of them. She builds an entirely different vision of Earth with the five senses and the result is incredible. 

Last thing I'll say is that there IS romance, peeps. It is slow building and you may feel like, "Gosh, when is she going to get with him?" but it happens. I also love that this book is not completely focused on the love interest but Allie herself. Her internal dilemmas. Her self-hatred. Her uncertainty about what type of vampire she is. It is really nice to see her struggle with this (I know, this sounds sadistic) because I love seeing inside the minds of my favorite characters. And Allie is definitely one of them. 

READ. IT. It is a great book and don't judge it because it is about vampires. I almost made that mistake. 

Buy The Immortal Rules on Amazon! Or get a closer look on Goodreads!

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Julie Kagawa, the New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey and Blood of Eden series was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn't getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.
When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time (okay, at least the illustrations did), but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a
real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, an obnoxious cat, an Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and a hyper-active Papillion.

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