The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Publisher's Summary: MY VAMPIRE CREATOR TOLD ME THIS:

"Sometime in your life, Allison Sekemoto, you will kill a human being. The question is not if it will happen, but when. Do you understand?"

I didn't then, not really.

I DO NOW.

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.

My Take: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is brilliant in so many ways! First, Julie Kagawa wrote it! Second, we have a post-apocalyptic world with vampires in control! How could it not be brilliant, amazing, awesome, horrific and gruesome?

Julie doesn’t hold back even from the very beginning of The Immortal Rules as she paints a horrid picture of the world that Allie lives in. As the story progresses it only gets so much more brutal. After a horrifically tragic attack on Allie and her crew, Allie becomes the one and only thing she hates the most and now she has to live with it!

The one thing that I loved most about The Immortal Rules is Allie! She has strong survival instincts, she’s tough and she’ll throw herself in front of danger to protect others. And even though I already thought Allie was a heroine in the beginning of the book, the heroine she becomes by the end is not even a close comparison! Allie is majorly kick butt and she totally rocks!

One scene after another throughout the whole, entire book brings increasing heart-pumping horror, intensity, action, tragedy…and betrayal! And those betrayals were the hardest parts of the story for me to swallow…because each and every time Allie was faced with ANOTHER betrayal, my heart broke for her. And of course the best part of the story is the beautiful but complicated romance that progresses throughout the book.

This book was astonishing, and Julie Kagawa proves once again how truly creative she is.