Review: The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa
The Eternity Cure
by Julie Kagawa
Book Two in the Blood of Eden series. My review for the first book can be found here.
This review contains spoilers for the previous volumes in the series.
The Eternity Cure picks up a few months after The Immortal Rules ended. Allie has left her friends behind in Eden, where she believes they are safe, and has been tracking her lost sire, Kanin. Every once in a while, she has visions of him being tortured by another vampire, and she's determined to rescue him before it’s too late. Allie has no chance of saving him alone, so when her "brother" Jackal, also sired by Kanin, offers to partner with her to save the vampire that created them, she reluctantly agrees...
Allie has really come into her own as a tough heroine. Although her rapid mastery of the katana raises an eyebrow - she only trained with the sword for a few weeks but she can wield it well enough to take on vampires much older than herself? - it is great that she actually goes out and defends herself. But it is her inner strength that really impresses me. I admire that she still struggles against the darkness of her "demon" and tries to keep her humanity intact. Sometimes she slips up, and it seems inevitable that she'll one day become like the other vampires, but for now she’s avoiding the temptation to view humans as little more than walking bags of blood.
We learn more about rabidism, the disease that nearly wiped out humans and led to the development of vampire cities. Thanks to the scheming of an insane vampire, the plague has been unleashed again, and both humans and vampires are desperate for a cure. It’s a truly horrible disease. It loomed over the story, giving every moment an extra urgency.
Many characters from the first book return unexpectedly. Jackal isn’t dead, as expected - in fact, he’s as lively as ever. He’s rude, crass and so much fun. He’s Allie’s polar opposite, initially, but the more time they spend together their similarities start stacking up. Zeke, Allie’s love interest, is back too - and good grief, he’s annoying. I get that Kagawa likes to give her characters little nicknames - I do that with my friends, too - but reading “vampire girl” over and over again just got really annoying over the course of four hundred pages. Also, I get that Zeke is supposed to be noble and brave, but so much of his identity seems wrapped up being Allie’s perfect soul mate that he honestly doesn’t have much personality. I think he’s dull.
The one character that I was really surprised to see again was Stick, Allie’s old human friend from her time in the Fringe. In the last novel, he betrayed Allie as a vampire when she went to check on him, which forced her to flee the city. His relationship with Allie is…complex. H wants to impress her with how important and powerful he is, but whether it’s out of a need for revenge or because he’s secretly in love with her or some strange mixture of both emotions is unclear. It could really go either way, depending on how you want to interpret his actions in The Eternity Cure.
This is a worthy sequel to The Immortal Rules. It ends on a major cliffhanger, which is going to drive me bonkers until the next book comes out.
3.5 out of 5 stars
To read more about The Eternity Cure, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2012: Sailor Moon Vol. 4 by Naoko Takeuchi
2011: Fashionista Piranha will be on hiatus for a while...
2010: Lady of the Butterflies by Fiona Mountain
2009: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
2008: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
by Julie Kagawa
Book Two in the Blood of Eden series. My review for the first book can be found here.
This review contains spoilers for the previous volumes in the series.
The Eternity Cure picks up a few months after The Immortal Rules ended. Allie has left her friends behind in Eden, where she believes they are safe, and has been tracking her lost sire, Kanin. Every once in a while, she has visions of him being tortured by another vampire, and she's determined to rescue him before it’s too late. Allie has no chance of saving him alone, so when her "brother" Jackal, also sired by Kanin, offers to partner with her to save the vampire that created them, she reluctantly agrees...
Allie has really come into her own as a tough heroine. Although her rapid mastery of the katana raises an eyebrow - she only trained with the sword for a few weeks but she can wield it well enough to take on vampires much older than herself? - it is great that she actually goes out and defends herself. But it is her inner strength that really impresses me. I admire that she still struggles against the darkness of her "demon" and tries to keep her humanity intact. Sometimes she slips up, and it seems inevitable that she'll one day become like the other vampires, but for now she’s avoiding the temptation to view humans as little more than walking bags of blood.
We learn more about rabidism, the disease that nearly wiped out humans and led to the development of vampire cities. Thanks to the scheming of an insane vampire, the plague has been unleashed again, and both humans and vampires are desperate for a cure. It’s a truly horrible disease. It loomed over the story, giving every moment an extra urgency.
Many characters from the first book return unexpectedly. Jackal isn’t dead, as expected - in fact, he’s as lively as ever. He’s rude, crass and so much fun. He’s Allie’s polar opposite, initially, but the more time they spend together their similarities start stacking up. Zeke, Allie’s love interest, is back too - and good grief, he’s annoying. I get that Kagawa likes to give her characters little nicknames - I do that with my friends, too - but reading “vampire girl” over and over again just got really annoying over the course of four hundred pages. Also, I get that Zeke is supposed to be noble and brave, but so much of his identity seems wrapped up being Allie’s perfect soul mate that he honestly doesn’t have much personality. I think he’s dull.
The one character that I was really surprised to see again was Stick, Allie’s old human friend from her time in the Fringe. In the last novel, he betrayed Allie as a vampire when she went to check on him, which forced her to flee the city. His relationship with Allie is…complex. H wants to impress her with how important and powerful he is, but whether it’s out of a need for revenge or because he’s secretly in love with her or some strange mixture of both emotions is unclear. It could really go either way, depending on how you want to interpret his actions in The Eternity Cure.
This is a worthy sequel to The Immortal Rules. It ends on a major cliffhanger, which is going to drive me bonkers until the next book comes out.
3.5 out of 5 stars
To read more about The Eternity Cure, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2012: Sailor Moon Vol. 4 by Naoko Takeuchi
2011: Fashionista Piranha will be on hiatus for a while...
2010: Lady of the Butterflies by Fiona Mountain
2009: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
2008: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent