The Immortal Rules - Julie Kagawa

When I woke up, I knew I was in hell. My whole body was on fire, or at least it felt that way, through I couldn't see the flames. It was dark, and a light rain was falling from the sky, which I found strange for hell. Then a dark figure loomed over me, jet-black eyes boring into mine, and I thought I knew him from. . . somewhere. Hadn't I met him before. . . ? “Can you hear me?” His voice was familiar, too, low and calm. I opened my mouth to reply, but only a choked gurgle escaped. What was wrong with me? It felt as if my mouth and throat were clogged with warm mud.     “Don’t try to speak.” The soothing voice broke through my agony and confusion. “Listen to me, human, You’re dying. The damage the rabbids did to your body is extreme. You have only a few minutes left in this world.” He leaned closer, face intense. “Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

The Red Lung virus was threatening to wipe out humanity so a Master vampire offered up other vampires to scientists in an attempt to save the world. The plan backfired and instead humans became cattle that were kept in gated communities run by Master vampires.

Allie lives in the Fringe, with a group of kids who are Unregistered citizens just like her. They don’t show up every month for bloodletting like the rest of the registered humans and so they go hungry. Allie lives each day as it comes, days are spent finding food to keep from starving and nights are spent hiding inside in fear of the vampires who stalk the night looking for humans to feed from. When she is desperate enough, Allie goes beyond the Outer Wall and into the ruins to scavenge. One day she is hungry enough to risk running into the rabids that live there, she ventures out and discovers a treasure trove, at the cost of her life.

Faced with the prospect of dying Allie chooses to live and is reborn as a vampire. She learns the ways of her new life from her sire until she is run out of town and must learn to live on her own. For the first time in her life, Allie finds herself cast out of New Covington and in search of a new home. She stumbles upon a group of wondering humans whom she joins and decides to attempt to play along and pretend to be human. The one thing her sire warned her of was starving herself because the longer she puts off feeding the closer she gets to madness and losing her self control.

Another fascinating look at a post-apocalyptic world where vampires rule and humans are no longer in charge. An interesting cast of characters, worth a read just for their interactions alone.

http://juliekagawa.com/wordpress/

The Reapers are the Angels - Alden Bell

The night comes, and when the sun rises again it rises over a motionless desert, over streets full of rusty, broken-down automobiles, over tumbleweed towns filled with derelict buildings, signposts twisted and bent so that their arrows become nonsensical, pointing into the dirt or up into the sky, billboards whose sunny images and colorful words flap unglued in the breeze, shop windows caked with the grime of decades, bicycles with flat tires abandoned in the middle of intersections, their wheels turning slowly like impotent tin windmills, some buildings charred and burnt out, others half fallen down, multistory tenements split down the middle, standing like shoebox dioramas, pictures still hanging on the upright walls, televisions still in place on their stands teetering over the gaping edge of the floor where the rest of the living room has collapsed to the ground in great mountains of concrete and dust and girder like the abandoned toys of a  giant child.

Set in a post-apocalyptic time, it’s never mentioned how people started turning, just that they did. Temple is the illiterate young heroine of the story that follows her on adventures in a world that she was born into. She never knew the world before, where meatskins and slugs didn't patrol the streets to attack and devour any living things they come into contact with. Seeing the world through the eyes of 16 year old is nothing knew but Temple has seen things and done things even she can’t comprehend. She journeys through American states coming across desirables and undesirables. The story is crafted with punctuation but is lacking speech marks which adds another unknown element into the story. Sometimes I found myself doubling back just so I had it clear in my head who said what and if it were out loud or in her head. She meets some interesting people and we get a peek into how different circumstances lead people to face hard times in different ways. Some people aid strangers whereas other people are always out for themselves, following their own set of rules or reclaiming something they felt was owed to them from another lifetime. Temple is coming to grips with being a monster while also not realising she acts like an angel. The story gets even weirder when she rescues a man (who she refers to as Dummy) that she passes in her car, being chased by a horde while carrying his expired granny. Very rarely does a tale full of zombies not also come hand in hand with gore. Although not extremely graphic, this book has its fair share of shocks and horrors. In spite of that, I found the ending a tad heart breaking. It made sense and fitted in with the story well, but I was still gutted after growing to know and love several of the characters.

If you enjoy the post-apocalyptic/zombie movies/stories then I would definitely recommend you give this book a read.  

http://www.joshuagaylord.com/