Author: Julie Kagawa
Release Date: April 24, 2012
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Blood of Eden Book #1
ISBN: 0373210515
ISBN13: 9780373210510
Genre: Young Adult/ Dystopian
Review Copy Source: Publisher
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.
In Julie Kagawa's new world Vampires are the ones at the top of the chain leaving humans as cattle. Allie is part of the humans who refuse to let the vampires take blood from them so they live outside of the other humans and have to scavenge for food and anything else they might want and try not to get caught. On one of those scavenging trips she is attacked and almost dead when a mysterious vampire offers to turn her. She doesn't want to die so she agrees to become one of the things she hates most.
Allie was very likable. When she was human she stood up for her beliefs and the people she cared about and when she was turned she stepped up to the plate and learned all she would need to survive without loosing her loyalty and values. THE IMMORTAL RULES was nicely paced with a few slow moments. The history of the world that her characters live in was nicely revealed and explained. The action was packed in and engaging. This was a pretty long book coming in at almost 500 pages but I never got bored or felt like it was dragging on.
The ending of THE IMMORTAL RULES reminded me a lot of the ending of EVE by ANNA CAREY. Allie and Zeke have lots of potential as a romantic couple and lots of feelings only to have to sacrifice them because one person isn't "allowed" the safety a place is offering. There is a lot of build up telling us what might happen next in the series and it promises a lot of action and suspense to come.
I gave it 4/5 stars
