So what happens if you mix a good ol' YA dystopia with a reverse Twilight love story (ie gal is vampire, guy is ... well, not so much)? Julie Kagawa has the answer in her "Blood of Eden" series, the second book of which came out recently - The Eternity Cure. I would highly recommend reading the first - The Immortal Rules - before tackling this one. You'll still follow the storyline if you don't, but it will be much more user-friendly if you do.
While Kagawa utilizes elements that have been used before in YA writing in recent years (notably dystopia and vampires), she puts her own unique spin on them and the result is highly entertaining reading. I did feel that Eternity Cure became dragged down a little bit with too many sequences involving our heroine and various of her comrades trudging around in tunnels under the city. It became a little repetitive at times. But I suppose that's the nature of the beast if it's the only (relatively) safe way to travel in cities infested by all sorts of creepy crawlies including mole men and rabids on top of generally untrustworthy bloodsucking vampires. The love story between the vampire-girl (Allie) and the human boy (Zeke) is handled with depth and sensitivity, and is afforded added dimension in both volumes of the trilogy to date by the fact that the boy comes from a strictly religious upbringing which makes being friends, let alone being in love with, a vampire extremely challenging. In this volume, Allie is also forced to ally herself with vampires that she can't really trust. Necessity makes VERY strange bedfellows. While the action gets bogged down in the tunnels (no pun intended, well, maybe ...) in places and the pace could be picked up, this is still a truly engaging read and I'm definitely going to pick up the next one. I need to know if there will be any place for the poor little humans at the end of the day in this horribly infested dystopia! And will anyone find a true "cure" for eternity??
While Kagawa utilizes elements that have been used before in YA writing in recent years (notably dystopia and vampires), she puts her own unique spin on them and the result is highly entertaining reading. I did feel that Eternity Cure became dragged down a little bit with too many sequences involving our heroine and various of her comrades trudging around in tunnels under the city. It became a little repetitive at times. But I suppose that's the nature of the beast if it's the only (relatively) safe way to travel in cities infested by all sorts of creepy crawlies including mole men and rabids on top of generally untrustworthy bloodsucking vampires. The love story between the vampire-girl (Allie) and the human boy (Zeke) is handled with depth and sensitivity, and is afforded added dimension in both volumes of the trilogy to date by the fact that the boy comes from a strictly religious upbringing which makes being friends, let alone being in love with, a vampire extremely challenging. In this volume, Allie is also forced to ally herself with vampires that she can't really trust. Necessity makes VERY strange bedfellows. While the action gets bogged down in the tunnels (no pun intended, well, maybe ...) in places and the pace could be picked up, this is still a truly engaging read and I'm definitely going to pick up the next one. I need to know if there will be any place for the poor little humans at the end of the day in this horribly infested dystopia! And will anyone find a true "cure" for eternity??
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