blood of eden , dark , deadly , fierce , Iron fey , Julie Kagawa , katana , killer , love , paranormal , post-apocolympic , strong , vampires , women , YA

The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden #1) by Julie Kagawa | Review

11:11:00 PM

Pages: 485 pages

Publication Date: April 24th 2012 by Harlequin Teen

ISBN: 0373210515 (ISBN13: 9780373210510)

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.

Now, What I Thought:

This is a post-apocalyptic vampire series. I have no idea what enticed me to read this book but damn am I glad that I did. The beginning is a little slow but that's just us getting introduced to the characters and the world that this story is set in. I mean, there are so many vampire books out there, I think the collective thought that everyone had when this came out was, "Another one!?" You can't really blame us though, the amount of cheesy vampire love stories there are out is ridiculous. But not this one! This was a refreshing post-apocalyptic novel about a girl trying to survive and preserve humanity against the vampires that now rule the land. Allison lives in a vampire city where she scavenges for food and survives against the vampires and the rabids, humans and creatures that have been turned and go crazy with bloodlust instead. Long story short, one night on a dangerous supply run she had to fight for her life saving her friends. After dying and accepting the choice to become the one thing she hates, she has to pass as human to survive on the outside and try to save humanity from the rabid disease that is threatening humans and vampires lives together.

The characters in this book are just amazing! I really found myself loving the amount of detail in their personalities, it made it very believable. Kanin, even after reading all the books, is still my favourite. For his strength, willpower, wiseness, and the list can go on. Allison respected him and I found myself respecting him as well. Kanin is the perfect leader; ruthless, gruesome, hard, and tough. She definitely had to work her butt off just to keep up with him training her. Kanin is a huge character in general for this world, he also is a huge player when it comes to the pre-apocalyptic and post- apocalyptic world. Allison, being new to vampirism, needed Kanin's help to adjust but quickly showed her strength and independence on how she handled herself and the ability to make smart decisions. A theme with Kagawa's writing is that she is not afraid to be explicitly detailed about violence and death, which I thank her for. I welcomed it with open arms because it really added to the 'realness' of the story and made me believe I was there living beside Allison in this horrible world. Also, can we just talk about Allison's katana, like damn! Fierce katana wielding vampire alert!

The romance in this novel, however, is not fierce nor alert worthy lol sorry. Kagawa KNOWS how to do romance, its pretty evident in her Iron Fey series, which were amazing btw. The romance for some people were great and yeah I guess it could be but I was so not focused on that aspect. I loved the gory, death parts and I didn't want this to be a YA paranormal love story, you know? Which btw, it wasn't! Again, there was romance but it wasn't overpowering, thank god! Zeke was the main love interest, he is, as expected, human and hates vampires. He is the only one that does accept her, even under her false pretence of being human, when everyone doesn't trust the new outsider (Allison). He really is the innocent type that had his view points about vampires turned to hatred because of his 'adopted' (?) father, Jeb. Ugh. Lets not talk about how wrong Jeb is about his perception of vampires and the world in general. Lets just say that he implements his ideas into Zeke and not in a nice way. One thing I did like about the romance aspect was that Allison wasn't whiny or consumed by her love for Zeke. Lets be honest, whiny protagonists in love are the worst! Im glad she wasn't that at all, she always had her mission at the front of her priorities, THANK YOU KAGAWA.

This is definitely a must-read and many can attest to that! Go out and buy it, please!!! 5 Stars!!!