The Rules Have Changed

"'You are a monster...
You will always be a monster, 
there is no turning back from it. 
But what type of monster you become 
is entirely up to you.'"

--Julie Kagawa, The Immortal Rules

Genre: YA Paranormal, Dystopia

Publisher: Harlequin Teen, 485 pages

Publication Date: April 24th, 2012

Source: Borrowed from Library

Goodreads

Goodreads Description

To survive 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.

My Thoughts

I am a HUGE fan of The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa...huge. Ash is my man and I would travel across the Nevernever and back for him...*sigh*. So I had high expectations going into The Immortal Rules. As one of my own general rules I don't read about vampires as the central story line. (YES BETTY AND JUDITH I WILL READ VAMPIRE ACADEMY AND DAGGER BROTHERHOOD THOSE ARE MY OTHER EXCEPTIONS :) ) It's just not something I'm particularly into...but I was proven wrong with this...for the most part.

Reading about the vampire lore actually turned out to be my favorite part. The politics, the quirks, the rules, I loved it all. Kanin is Allison's teacher and he is probably my absolute favorite character besides Allison. He is dark, wise, mysterious, and absolutely infuriating at points. So basically, I loved him. My one qualm with this story line...we so didn't get enough of him. I wanted way more time with Kanin and getting to know him better. He has so many demons (pun intended) in his closet and I wanted more insight into him. What makes him tick, his history, all he's seen, I wanted it all! I only hope we get way more of him in the next book.

Allison is AWESOME! She is hardened by the streets she grew up on but you know when it comes down to it she will sacrifice herself and her own needs for those around her that she cares about. Her entire screw you attitude is another thing I totally feel in love with. Whether you be a mangy street rat or a thousand year old vampire, this girl will take no shit from no one. Love it. Always. You go girlfriend. When she joins up with Zeke and his crew I really liked how she kept her head. She is strong. AND you know that Zeke is supposed to be the love interest as you're reading but Allie definitely keeps her boundaries and I totally respected that. Normally I would be all 'Kiss him anyways!!' But not this time. I definitely could understand her motives about the impossibility of their relationship and I liked that she kept her distance.

Zeke...meh. I don't know, he just didn't really do it for me. I was swooning way more over Kanin than Zeke. He fell flat for me. He definitely had his moments but he just didn't really do it for me. I hope things change with this in the next book, too. We shall see...

The plot was very intriguing. Definitely kept my attention and I wanted to keep reading. However, there were definite parts of the middle that could have been cut out and served no real purpose to me. And I also felt myself skimming just a little bit towards the end with the fight scenes because I was losing interest. The book is long, almost 500 pages and I just feel like I would have liked it a lot more if it had been cut down a bit. 

But, like Kagawa's other work her writing is amazing. She weaves a story that makes you feel like you are in this world. The dystopia she creates is horrifying and gruesome. One of my many praises of the book, obviously, from my messed up mind :) I also really like how I don't know where this story will go exactly. I like being surprised and seeing where this plot will unravel. 

Should You Read This? I wouldn't push over your entire TBR pile in order to get to it, but if you are a previous fan of Kagawa or vampires in general then you will probably really enjoy this. I liked it but just not enough to say go read this now.