Title: The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden #1)
Author: Julie Kagawa
Date Published: April 24, 2012
Date Read: October 23rd
Genre: YA/Fantasy/Dystopia/Vampires
PBAS (Protagonist Bad Ass Scale): 4.5/5 – Allison (Allie) is a SURVIVOR. A human in a city full of vampires, where she has to scrounge for food and fight for her life. Even before she gets turned (not a spoiler alert, its written in the official blurb!), she is a bad-ass female! Then, when she becomes a vampire, this lady is powerful! It is SO NICE to have a story, where the female lead is a bad ass vampire, and not the wilting lily lusting after the alpha-male-all-powerful-somehow-after-hundreds-of-years-only-soothed-by-her-vampire. Her physical skills include stealth, speed, agility, and sword fighting! The only reason she is not a 5/5 is becuase, lets face it, she lives on the fringe and is perpetually starving. If she were able to eat properly and fuel her body with ideal nutrition, she would probably be unstoppable!
Amazon Purchase link : The Immortal Rules
To s
urvive 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.
I loved this story! It was compelling, and I couldn’t put it down. I am going to get uncharacteristically profound here and talk about what I think one of the main themes is. Allison, on the verge of dying, is given the option of death, or being turned into a vampire, a creature she hates more than anything. After she is turned, she makes a choice to try and retain as much humanity as possible, becuase she refuses to become a blood-thirsting monster who murders needlessly. This is a good twist on dealing with shame and self-loathing, an unfortunately common theme with people. We all have ingrained things about us that we wish were different, and in some cases, self-loathing can become detrimental and lead to social, psychological, and physical problems. Allie is learning to deal with her self-loathing, and trying to accept herself, something that is easier said than done. It takes constant work, determination, and never gets easy, but it can be done!
I thought this vampire girl was a great role model 🙂
Oh, and on an uber-plus side, there is NO LOVE TRIANGLE at all! Yay! I hates them, I do!
The book has a nice amount of gore too, which I love. Makes it feel less Young-Adulty.
Overall 5/5 becuase this book is definitely binge worthy!
