Review Detail

This is not your average YA vampire novel. But then again, it's Julie Kagawa, so why would you ever expect average?

So, Allie is five kinds of badass. She's an orphan, she takes care of herself and kinda takes care of another kid, she can fight, and she's willing to creep into territories a lot of other people are afraid to. Then as a vampire? The badassery continues to grow. She learns a lot, she becomes a better fighter, the girl wields a katana, guys.

Now, I'll be totally honest, I was kinda bored at first. It's a big book, it has a lot of build up before you get to the main plot. I'm pretty sure that build up is because it's necessary information for later books in the series and I'll be glad it was there to set up the future books, but it made it kind of hard to get into.This might've had something to do with the fact I decided to do a read-a-thon but I was restless as I always am when I try to make myself sit down and read. It could also have to do with the fact that the romance didn't kick in until the second half of the novel and, well, do I really need to explain?

The world building was really well done. I could picture the world, I understood how it came about. Because while this is a vampire novel, it's a dystopian vampire novel. Which, hard to imagine, but read it and then it all makes sense. But Julie was really thorough with how things worked and any unanswered questions, I don't doubt will be answered in the sequels.

Despite everything The Immortal Rules has going (awesome writing, solid world building, badass main character, dystopian, romance), we just didn't click. It was a really good book, but something was missing for me. Don't even try to ask me to figure it out, because I can't. But that IT factor wasn't there and it made me kind of angry with myself. How could I NOT absolutely love and adore and obsess over this book? I dunno, it bothers me though.

Despite my lack of IT factor, I still really enjoyed The Immortal Rules, especially once I got into the second half. And I still plan to read the sequels because I know Julie puts out quality work and if this series is anything like the Iron Fey series, each book just gets better.