Check the Shelf Book Review: The Jewel

Summary (From Goodreads)

The Jewel means wealth. The Jewel means beauty. The Jewel means royalty. But for girls like Violet, the Jewel means servitude. Not just any kind of servitude. Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty—because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring.

Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel’s glittering facade: the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.

Violet must accept the ugly realities of her existence… and try to stay alive. But then a forbidden romance erupts between Violet and a handsome gentleman hired as a companion to the Duchess’s petulant niece. Though his presence makes life in the Jewel a bit brighter, the consequences of their illicit relationship will cost them both more than they bargained for.

Shannan’s Summary

Violet is a surrogate.  She is getting ready to go to auction and will be bought by one of the royals in the center of the island.  Violet isn’t sure what to expect, but she knows being one of the highest rated surrogates gives her a chance of being bought by a good house, though she couldn’t have anticipate what life would be like afterwards.  After the auction, life becomes a chess game, one that she didn’t expect to have to play in.  But her life, and the life of those she cares for may hang in the balance of whether she can make the right choices and play the game well.

First Off…

This one popped up on a bunch of blogs I follow and when I found it as an audiobook on overdrive, I decided to give it a go.

Thoughts:

So I liked this book.  I wouldn’t say love, but I definitely want to read the next one to see what happens.   I like that Violet is so relatable from the beginning.  There was excitement with her friends about starting a new chapter in life, much like going off to college.  Once she’s bought at auction, life isn’t what she was expecting, and she has to make very intentional choices.

What I really liked about this dystopia is the magic in it.  I think all the dystopias I’ve read over the years are after a world war strikes and America isn’t America anymore or it’s about robots taking over the world.  The Jewel takes place in a different world, and there’s magic, which has a very different set of rules from most of the magic systems out there.  I love that this magic has a physical consequence, but also have some guesses as to what will be discovered in the coming books.  I defiantly can’t wait to see what happens in the rest of the story.

Also the world Ewing developed as a whole, was well planned out.  She worked the tension between the reader’s knowing and being in the dark well.  I always (and still do) had questions stringing me along.  Some of the questions though I felt were a little predictable, as I guessed a couple pieces of the ending nearly as soon as I met the characters they involved.  That didn’t ruin the book for me, more so it made me want to find out if I was right.

Something else I really liked was the tension that played out among the royals.  Usually in dystopias there tend to be two sides and you get into one camp or the other, but in this world, even while you don’t like the royals, there are many different ideas among them what life should be like, which adds to the intrigue.

The Voice

I accepted Spencer as Violet immediately.  She has great timing and dramatizes Violet and the other characters well.  I’ve been a little bit of a rut with audiobooks, and I think it’s because of the voices for the books I’m reading.  Spencer however cut through that with her dramatic timing and multitude of voices.

In the End

I have a request for the next book in overdrive, which I thoroughly anticipate I will regret reading since there is no release date on the third book yet.

10 Second Summary:

1. A different type of dystopian: Not placed in our world, which allows a more creative world
2. Great cast of characters:  A good variety of characters, some more typical than others.
3. A little bit of magic:  Who doesn’t love magic?

Right now, I would say paperback, but we’ll see how the rest of the story plays out.  The hardbacks do look pretty though.