Overall, The Immortal Rules wasn't bad, and I understand why people would like it. My biggest issue is that I wasn't excited and completely immersed with the story as much as I would have liked. I like Julie's take on vampires. They were not romanticized, and numerous times I just made a disgusted face or said, "ewww vampires!" As I should.As much as I love my share of romanticized vampires (Adrian Ivashkov, my eyes are glued on you), I loved how badass and gore-filled Julie's vampires were; it all seemed very natural. Despite this, vampires are nothing new, and I found myself getting bored when Kanin was teaching Allie Vampire 101. As for the characters, my personal favorite was Kanin. He was intriguing and mysterious, and I hope to hear more about him in the sequel. I liked how he was idealistic in wanting to help the humans, and how even now when he lost a lot of naivety and hope, he still wants to help humans by giving them a chance to stay alive as a vampire.For our lovely heroine, I liked her character development a lot as she went from looking out on her own to looking after others. It was easy to understand her mentality for survival, but I couldn't really relate to her probably because my life is nowhere near as screwed up as the vampire society she lives in thank god. Zeke, the love interest, was sweet and protective. So despite having nothing against his character (in fact he is very admirable), I wasn't thrilled by him or the romance.One of my biggest qualms with this story is some of the lack of character development for the other characters like Jeb and Ruth. I understand that both are ingrained with the idea that vampires are eeeevil, but after Allie saves your ass so many times, you ought to reconsider. Maybe. But do they? No, they do not. Ruth remained the "mean girl" trope, who was jealous that Zeke was falling for Allie instead of her, and spent the whole novel glaring at Ally and trying to find something wrong with her when she wasn't pursuing the love interest. I really wanted character development for Ruth where she reevaluates her relationship with Allie, but then she dies, so there's that.I may read the sequel to see if it gets better and see where it goes, but it's not really a priority as I kept a straight face for the majority of the book instead of swooning, laughing, and cheering on the characters like I wanted to.