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. (From Goodreads)
I read the first book in the Iron Fey series and didn't really care for it (I know, that's terrible - you can throw things at me) and I'm generally not a fan of vampire books. But The Immortal Rules kind of rocked. It was kind of like if True Blood was played out to its worst case scenario. Vampires rule the earth and humans cater to vamps. And instead of vampires slinking around in the night, the humans that are left hide under the cover of the sun.
Allie lives in a post-apocalyptic world (epidemic, diseased apocalypse) in which vampires have taken over to restore their form of "order." This mix between a myriad of different genres could have seemed chaotic, but Kagawa pulled everything together so wonderfully. Every aspect that made up this world had a clear cause, some reason that it has reached that point.
But if vampires ruling the world wasn't enough of a twist, Allie becomes a vampire (it's in the synopsis, I'm not spoiling, I swear!) and joins a band of humans struggling to survive as they chase the dream of a vampire free city. The dynamics of this group were what made this book great. There's kind of a quasi-religious foundation that is rather interesting and the leader appears to have some tendencies towards the cultish - but it really comes down to survival for them all. I really appreciated the way that they reacted when Allie came into their midst, it was very clear that she upset their order and watching them adjust to fit her brought all these characters to life in a real way.
The way this world was imagined was vibrant and clear. Every single setting was perfectly vivid in my mind. Between the characters and the world they live in, this future is an imaginable one - if we really believe vampires exist, of course. But I think that's why I really loved this book. This world is crawling with vampires and the main character is a vampire - but it never feels like that's really what it's about. Vampires are more of a circumstance meant to illuminate the separation in humanity.
