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I met Amy during a book event in The Netherlands in April. It took me a while to get to reading The Jewel and I need the next book in this series.
Book Review: The Jewel by Amy Ewing
Rating:
Title & Author: The Jewel by Amy Ewing
Genre: Dystopia, Romance
Release Date: September 4 2014
Series: The Lone City
Publisher: HarperCollins
Synopsis
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.
I give The Jewel by Amy Ewing four out of five hearts. I thought the story was pretty interesting even though there were some points that I hated and thought were ripped from certain books.
Overall I liked the characters, they were all pretty different from one another. Violet is a semi strong girl, pushed into a world she does not want to be in. But she finds an unlikely ally in Lucien, someone who has been in this new world. Something that I found a bit unlikely, even with the reason Amy gives in the story. This character also felt very much like Cina from The Hunger Games. He is someone that makes Violet beautiful, right before she has to do the thing she hates most, just like Cina does for Katness. It bugged me a little bit.
Ash is a boy stuck in the world of The Jewel, but in a different way than Violet. He does not want to be there, but he also wants to be there so he can take care of his family. Which is a bit counter intuitive, but understandable.
But the same as how you could be interested in Ash’s reasons for becoming a companion. But this also goes for Raven. She is a girl also caught into The Jewel to become a surrogate to the royalty and she is one of those girl that fights it with all her strength. But sadly enough she is not there for the reasons she originally thought she was.
I find Ravens story in a way much more interesting than Violets, but unfortunately Amy chose the write her story and not Ravens (yet).
The end did keep me interested in Violets story, because she is finally getting out of The Jewel. And she is finally seeing Raven again. And because of the events from that moment on I wanted to read the other parts of these novels. I am going to see which book I can buy the soonest.
Let me know what you thought of this book!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.
For now, let books enrich your life!