ARC Review: The Immortal Rules

Title: The Immortal Rules
Author: Julie Kagawa
Genre: YA, Paranormal
Release Date: April 24th

See it at Goodreads

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.


I hope I’m not the only one, but I still think The Iron Fey rocks more than The Immortal Rules. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I’ve read this entire series, you never know. Not that it wasn’t good, of course. I mean, after all, vampires are back--and they’re back with a proper form. No more sparklies. This is how it’s done, people.

Julie Kagawa has certainly proven herself capable of writing more than just fairies. And I admit that going into this, I was wary about how it’d turn out. How does one explain a world so crafted to detail? Well, she didn’t have a problem at all, I can tell you that much. I was drawn in from the beginning and held onto until the last page.

I felt sympathy for Allie as both human and vampire. Each character felt individual and unique. I liked that most. Sadly, I didn’t quite connect with Zeke at times, maybe because he felt so weak in comparison to Allie. But that could have also been on purpose. After all, he’s human. I rather liked Kanin a lot, though…and it was just completely disheartening to have him seemingly disappear from the plot entirely halfway through, despite that he had been a key character in the beginning. He better be in the next installment, and I sure hope there’s not some love triangle coming later (though I can safely say for now there’s not). There were some heavy religious undertones that made me a bit uncomfortable to be honest, but I don’t know if it was the intention of preaching to the reader or just the character’s personality. After reading, I believe it was the latter, though still a bit annoying. I can safely say he was one of the character’s I didn’t like, too, and I believe that was Kagawa’s every intention as well. I really loved that when I wasn’t supposed to like particular characters in the book, I really didn’t. Kagawa did an excellent job with the characterization.

When Allie meets Zeke, she became stronger in my opinion. Already a very strong and likeable heroine, it’s surprising to find the changes she goes through to fight for her new life. The action is powerful and well-paced throughout the story, and I couldn’t put it down. And the ending…grr…I don’t want to wait so long for the next installment!

Overall, I completely loved The Immortal Rules and highly recommend it. If you think you’ve read it all when it comes to vampires, think again.