This ARC was courtesy of Harlequin Teen. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.
The Immortal Rules is my first taste of the popular author Julie Kagawa, and I have to say that it is vampires done right. Now, I know by just saying vampires I turned some of you away, but don’t forget I said they were done right. These are brutal, self-loathing, bloodsucking monsters not pasty, angst-filled, sparkly beings that are eternally eighteen. So, now that I have you guys back let me tell you The Immortal Rules is about.
The Immortal Rules is centered on a seventeen-year old girl named Allison Sekemoto who is currently living in a world that is living in the fallout of a disease that killed billions sixty years ago. During that time, the vampires came out of hiding, protecting the human race, but also forcing them into a form of slavery where they must each register to give them blood. However, Allison is an Unregistered, one of the few humans who stays beneath the vampire’s radar. But, that all changes when one day she becomes one of the creatures she hates most.
The Immortal Rules has many things going for it; one of those is that it has girth. Now, I personally like books with a little bit of beef to them. Unfortunately, the YA genre has tapped into this and decided to send out many manuscripts that are lengthy, but are in desperate need of an editing job and would end up only being 250 or 300 pages. The Immortal Rules is different though; it actually has enough story to expand through its pages and is not in any sort of an editing job.
Julie Kagawa also did not pull any punches. She built up a rich, grungy, post-apocalyptic world and real explored it in a way that was realistic. No one was safe, the characters you came to know and love were never far from danger and you never knew how long they were going to last. So, that was an aspect that I really appreciated. Too often do I see dystopian novels that only feign grittiness and most of the time they do this by making their characters swear and have more sex, which is not real grittiness. I also really cared about these gritty characters in The Immortal Rules they all had their own biases and quirks that were believable. Even the characters I did not care for I could relate to and understand their motives.
While loved the realistic characters, world building and just the uniqueness of the story in general, there were some flaws. The pacing at the beginning was a bit off. The summary I gave you above was considerably less on the book so that it won’t leave you waiting. The events portrayed on the cover flap for the book don’t actually happen for the first 150 or 200 pages, I believe. The story at the beginning was fun and had a ton of world building, but it was a bit slow and it took me a while to get into it. Also, for part of the novel I was worried that it was going to feel like two completely different stories in the same series. For a little while, it did, but fortunately Julie Kagawa artfully wrapped them all together in the end. So, that was a relatively minor flaw.
Overall, The Immortal Rules is an exciting and inventive addition to the dystopian genre. I would highly recommend it and cannot wait for the second installment in The Blood of Eden trilogy. I will also definitely make sure I go back and read Kagawa’s Iron Fey series.
Visit Julie Kagawa at her website here.
Content:
Language: Frequent due to the level of education most characters have, but nothing over the top.
Violence: There is quite a bit of action, but nothing every gets really gory.
Sexuality: None that I can remember.
Recommended for 14 +
My Rating:
8.5/10
-Dylan
P.S: Sorry it took so long for this review. Don't worry my review of The King's Blood is already in the pipes!