A review by emilyusuallyreading
The Jewel by Amy Ewing
3.0
What I Liked
I kind of consider this book equivalent to Reign on Netflix... not as good or as real-feeling as the Tudors or the Crown, for example, but mindless fun.
Very similar to The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood, I was intrigued by the premise of this story, which is why I opened this book in the first place.
The gender-bending in The Jewel is interesting to me. The female surrogates are kept chaste, because heaven forbid they mess up the royal surrogacies. The companions are young men who are essentially forced into sex trafficking. The sexual abuse causes all sorts of trauma to them. It's not a typical look at sexual abuse and sex trafficking, so I appreciate this less-read perspective.
What I Didn't Like
The names. The names are very teenage dystopian, if this was a teenage dystopian parody. Violet Lasting, Pearl the Duchess of the Lake and her children Garnet and Carnelian, Raven Starling, Ash Lockwood, and so on. With each new name, I found myself cringing a little more.
Violet's appearance. My pet peeve in YA literature is when the protagonist has eyes that are the color violet. Which Violet's are (of course). Violet eyes aren't a thing, or at least I've never heard of them actually being a thing, so why do all of these YA Chosen One heroes happen to have purple eyes? Really, really, not a thing.
Insta-love isn't my favorite thing. In fact, I kind of hate it. And there is a lot of insta-love here... and a lot of risking your entire families and an entire country's mission based on your insta-love.
I kind of consider this book equivalent to Reign on Netflix... not as good or as real-feeling as the Tudors or the Crown, for example, but mindless fun.
Very similar to The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood, I was intrigued by the premise of this story, which is why I opened this book in the first place.
The gender-bending in The Jewel is interesting to me. The female surrogates are kept chaste, because heaven forbid they mess up the royal surrogacies. The companions are young men who are essentially forced into sex trafficking. The sexual abuse causes all sorts of trauma to them. It's not a typical look at sexual abuse and sex trafficking, so I appreciate this less-read perspective.
What I Didn't Like
The names. The names are very teenage dystopian, if this was a teenage dystopian parody. Violet Lasting, Pearl the Duchess of the Lake and her children Garnet and Carnelian, Raven Starling, Ash Lockwood, and so on. With each new name, I found myself cringing a little more.
Violet's appearance. My pet peeve in YA literature is when the protagonist has eyes that are the color violet. Which Violet's are (of course). Violet eyes aren't a thing, or at least I've never heard of them actually being a thing, so why do all of these YA Chosen One heroes happen to have purple eyes? Really, really, not a thing.
Insta-love isn't my favorite thing. In fact, I kind of hate it. And there is a lot of insta-love here... and a lot of risking your entire families and an entire country's mission based on your insta-love.