Wickedly Sweet Books: Review: Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Release Date: April 24, 2012

Pages: 485

Summary provided by Goodreads

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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

*****

Okay, so this story begins with Allison, as she struggles to survive, both by scavenging for food and avoiding the night, to avoid risking a vampire attack. In this world, vampires rule, and humans are forced to register and donate blood to the vamps or to remain unregistered and learn to scavenge for food on their own.

One night, as Allie is scavenging once again, she ends up being attacked, and she must choose between death or becoming one of the creatures that she despises most. In the end, she could not choose death, and she chooses to become a vampire.

This book follows Allie as she learns what it truly means to be a vampire and how to learn to feed while still retaining her humanity.

It is a wild ride filled with suspense, mystery, romance, death, and tragedy.

Now, on to my opinion.....

Let me begin by saying, honestly, I am not a fan of vampire books. I never really have been. Yes, I have read Twilight, because there was so much hype about it, and I wanted to know if it was really that great. And I also read Insatiable and Overbite by Meg Cabot, because she's my favorite author.

Other than that, I don't know why, but I'm just not a vampire fan. I love all other types of paranormal fantasy, other than vampires.

However, I LOVE Julie Kagawa's work. I loved her Iron Fey series. She has such a talent at writing, I just had to try this as well.

That being said, I am so glad I gave this book a chance. I LOVED this novel!

The beginning of the novel started off a little slow for my taste. I definitely thought there would be a lot more action at first. However, the build up was definitely worth it!

Not that I have read many vampire novels, but I felt that this one was completely original. A paranormal romance AND a dystopian?! Can you even DO that?!

The answer is YES! If your name is Julie Kagawa, you can pull off just about anything!

The one most interesting aspect of this novel is the fact that it truly deals with the issues of humanity. When you have a "monster" living inside of you, it is so hard to do the right thing. This book really depicts Allie's struggle as she does her best to be the person she wants to be, rather than the monster that she feels like inside.

The journey she experiences is both beautiful and heart-wrenching. It is definitely a challenge to read this book, because you find yourself seeing yourself in the situation. You get to really understand the struggle that Allie faces in trying to make the right decisions, while trying to avoid the hunger that constantly eats at her.

This book is absolutely incredible. If all vampire novels were more like this, I wouldn't really have a problem reading any of them. I definitely recommend this novel. I couldn't put it down. Once you get past the slow beginning, the action picks up, and you are taken on a wild journey.

Just an FYI, if you can't stand gore, violence, and death, then this may not be the novel for you. This is definitely no Twilight. There's plenty of death and lots of blood. Sometimes, it may leave you a little "queasy" but it's impossible to put down.

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Overall, I would give this book

5/5 Wickedly Sweet Cupcakes!