The Immortal Rules

Blood of Eden, Book 1

By: Julie Kagawa

Narrated by: Therese Plummer

Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2012 Julie Kagawa (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

My favorite book!

I read this book when it first came out and LOVED it. The reader did a masterful performance taking my love for this book deeper.

Great new vampire series

What did you love best about The Immortal Rules?

The characters are interesting, the setting is creepy and the action was great. I was worried at first that Allison would be portrayed as a helpless or naive 17 year old girl and was pleasantly surprised that she ended up being such a strong character.

Have you listened to any of Therese Plummer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, I listened to Therese Plummer’s performances of the Trylle Trilogy and thought she was amazing. It was because of her great performance that I found this book in her narrator list.

Any additional comments?

This book is a fantastic start to what looks to be a great series. I can’t wait for the next book.

Surprising good.

I tend to keep away from YA novels. I typically dislike the characters and the way they interact with each other. I found the plot behind this interesting so I decided to chance it and I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed it.

The main characters felt real and not one dimensional. The heroine doesn't fall into the submissive or altruistic hole that drives me crazy with "strong" female characters. Granted she did risk herself a number of times but I took that more to be her own arrogance and teenage belief she wouldn't die.

I did feel like instead of a novel I was reading a couple of novellas pieced together but I didn't mind that.

My biggest problem with this book is that twice it would have been far less interesting if anyone had said, "Hey, let's not be stupid and wait a few hours before doing this thing so we don't die horribly." You have people who spend their entire lives just trying to make it to the next day and they do things that are needlessly desperate and stupid.

Another issue was that the author clearly doesn't understand the meaning of expiration dates. 60+ years and all the food and gasoline is still perfectly fine? Really? I suppose if I allow for vampires I shouldn't complain too much about realism but still.

All in all I really did like the book and have already gotten the sequel.

Entranced from chapter 1

Great story. Written well and captured my attention from the first sentence. I liked the characters and look forward to reading the next book.

Interesting take on Vampires!

Where does The Immortal Rules rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's definitely the best book that I've listen to on Audible since I've started my membership last year. I usually don't go for vampire related material but the cover gripped my interest and I ended up loving it.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Immortal Rules?

The entire scene in which Allison became a vampire is definitely the most important scene in the book.

Which character – as performed by Therese Plummer – was your favorite?

Definitely Allison.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Several scenes got to me but the top three for me were
1. Finally arriving at Eden
2. Allison and Kanin's escape from the vampire city
3. Allison being banished from Zeke's group after being discovered as a vampire

Any additional comments?

Loved the entire series!!! :)

Best vampire story

I read this as a team, and really, really enjoyed it. I’m now in my young 20s, and I’m a little older than the targeted age group, but the story is still very enjoyable.

Slight spoilers ahead .

The biggest issue I have in writing is when there are annoyances. Stupid people doing stupid things, or frustrating characters acting in dumb ways. There’s a character in this story that is rather frustrating, and makes me want to slap them across the face multiple times. Thankfully they are not in the story long, so we are spared much of the annoyance they caused. But it’s still the hardest part of the story to get through, and the only real thing that drags it down.

All in all, by far the best vampire story out there, and I wish more people knew about this series .

Loved it.

Entertaining twist on post-apocalyptic times and what it means to be human. (Chose what kind of monster you will be.)

All in One...

Post-Apocalyptic, vampire, zombie-esque, light romance, with a sword-yielding heroine that reminded me a bit of Buffy...this one has it all. Engaging tale and the story-line does have some unique twists for an over-saturated genre. The narration was very well done and, thought there are slow areas, I found this to be very entertaining.

The ending came too soon and I was glad to find the second book after a bit of searching. Dawn of Eden appears to be a prequel and The Eternity Cure follows this book. As of today, Audible does not have it linked here and it is a new release. So, if you are like me and looking for more then you are in luck.

Just "ok" with characters lapses of reason

The Vampire/Zombie Post Apocalyptic world was set quite nicely. I enjoyed the world she paints in her story (a bit too floral and waxing too poetic at times) and would actually buy a sequel based on the overall storytelling. Julie Kagawa paints a very entertaining Vampire/Zombie post apocalyptic world - but populates her story too liberally with unbelievable and naive characters.

Much of it was an interesting retelling of a frequently done theme. Human survivors live somewhere between conditions of "The Hunger Games" , Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and Justin Cronin's "The Passage". Actually the book feels like a blending of the three.. The situation's brutality of "The Road", the monsters and cities from the "Passage' and the teen/young audience writing of the "Hunger Games".

What annoyed my enjoyment of the novel, was the repetition of unbelievable reactions/behaviors of the main characters. The characters behavior felt dishonest and downright, lemming stupid at times. Instead of acting like people brought up in a dog eat dog post apocalyptic world where stupid gets you dead - they act like kids taken from a modern mall and dropped into this world for a few weeks.

Example -

the main characters run into many gangs of rapist cannibals who try to.. well do what they do to the female lead. Our heroes born in this dog eat dog world get the upper hand and decide it is unethical to kill these cannibal rapist bad guys. Carefully leaving them alive to preserve their own humanity. Really? In this kill or be killed world.. please..

Or better yet

- veteran scavengers on a planned mission, just happen to get caught outside in the dark in the worst known territory of undead monster activity after dark. Oops. Gee. Who could possibly predict when the sun would set? Please. Come up with some other way where your characters get in trouble - couldn't a patrol have stopped and kept them pinned down in forbidden territory, something other than just eye rolling carelessness.

Children and people mildly walk out of shelter in unknown territory into a throng of man eating zombie/vamps.. Its like the cast is TRYING to earn a Darwin award for stupid deaths. Natural selection would have weeded this sort of behavior out long ago.

So, if you can tolerate a story where the author clearly pulls her punches, and is obviously writing for a younger audience, then you'll get through this book just fine. And if you can't, well stick with novels by the likes of Justin Cronin, Cormac McCarthy, or even Suzanne Collins.

Awesome book and narrator!

Listened to this within about 24-hours...just couldn't "put it down"! Excellent story, characters and narration. Highly recommended.