Review: The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa

The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication date: April 30th 2013
My rating: 5 stars

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally. Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.

“This is what I am, I thought, walking forward to join them. This is where I belong, in the darkness. We’re vampires. That’s all we’ll ever be” 

Once again when I’ve found myself stumbling through books and in a reading slump, Kagawa is the one to pull me out of it. I had high hopes for The Eternity Cure after adoring The Immortal Rules last year but The Eternity Cure exceeded all my expectations. I have so much love for this book right now that I think my review will just be full of incoherent babbling and gushing, so I’m doing my review for this book a little bit differently. 

The Characters. 
With The Immortal Rules we were introduced to a range of characters which quite easily found a place in my heart. I thought I knew what these characters were really like then, and once again Kagawa was easy to remind me why I became so fond of them in the first place; especially of Kanin, Allie and Zeke. These three were an unlikely trio, but the way everything had been left ravaged they had come together with the same end goal. What I admired about all three was despite their clear differences, they were willing to work together, put their life on their line, for each other no question asked. Their time together was laced with humorous scenes, but also scenes which had me choking up with tears. Those who were disappointed with the amount of Kanin in The Immortal Rules will be pleased with this latest instalment. I had high hopes for his character in this book and that we would get to know his character more and I will say the wait was definitely worth it. Allie couldn’t have asked for a better sire. His resilience, determination and always attempting to do what was right despite time being against him I truly admired. These characteristics were clearly strong in Allie’s character too. Then we had our “secondary characters” I guess I can’t really call them that because of how much of a direct impact they had on this book. With these characters Kagawa was the monster of toying with your feelings; there were no clear cut answers with them, you never knew what they would do next, if you could trust them, but they triggered so many emotions within me of; confusion, laughter, hatred and rage. You know when you’re a kid and you’re watching a cartoon, and a villain is brought in to mess with the good guys like Mufasa in The Lion King, some of these characters especially with Sarren and Stick evoked all those feelings that I used to have as I had as a kid, where you’re just furious, and nothing can be the same until you’ve throttled them to death. Kagawa definitely took it up a whole another notch with these brilliant set of characters. If you thought your heart had been pushed to the limits with The Immortal Rules, just wait. 

World building. 
The Eternity Cure did take me a while to get into, but after a few pages, this crazy world Kagawa created completely pulled me in. I was completely taken in by the chaos and destruction and every new mission that Allie had to complete. Kagawa was able to make this crazy world appear so real, that everything Allie was going through I felt I was experiencing it alongside with her. Despite New Covington being dangerous and infested, I felt myself invested in this story until the very end, until we had the answers we needed. So to sum the world building was pure brilliance! 

Surprise Factors. 
Just like in The Immortal Rules, my heart was in my throat the entire time with The Eternity Cure. I was on high alert all the time, never letting my guard down, as you never knew what was lurking around the corner. With The Eternity Cure you just have to be prepared for the unexpected; there’s endless surprises which will cause heartache; as if you have a knife slicing through your heart, and just will have you reeling with aftershocks. And then there are others which will cause you great amount of rage. I think these were the two strongest emotions that this book evoked within me; heartache and rage. My poor heart and blood pressure barely survived with every single blow. 

The Ending. 
I have no words...how could you do this to me Ms. Kagawa? 

This year I have been struggling to find books which have completely blown me away, thus the reason why The Eternity Cure is only my second 5 star rated book of the year so far. But honestly if I could give this book 100 stars I would as it was that damn good. Bring on 2014, for the next instalment, I’m pretty sure by that time my heart will have been taped back together and I will be raring to go for whatever Kagawa has to offer. *cowers in corner and cries to self*