The Jewel by Amy Ewing

When I saw a bunch of my favorite authors and bloggers on IG reading The Jewel before it came out, I got super excited for it. There are a lot of mixed reviews for this book, but I think it's because people are trying to compare it to The Selection and other similiar books. It does have a Selection-y vibe to it but it's mostly due to the royalty and the world they live in. I also was vaguely reminded of The Hunger Games because of the auction that takes place and the lady in waiting who helps Violet (reminiscent of Senna and Katniss). 

But despite what other people thought, I really liked this book. Violet is a likeable character because she is beautiful, but she doesn't care about her beauty. She is smart and deeply cares about those close to her. You really feel sorry for her because she is snatched away from her family at such a young age and she never gets to see them again (minus one instance before her auction). She really grows as a character in the book. She goes from a scared young girl to a confident, brave young woman in 300pages. Some of the decisions she made in the later parts of the book, I didn't necessary agree with but I was really impressed that she stepped up and made them. 

The book has some twists that you're going to see coming, but there are going to be a few that catch you off guard. The biggest thing about the book that I like is that you really don't know who is good and who isn't. Every time you start to trust someone, something happens and you don't know what to think. The Electress, the Duchess of Lake, Lucien, pretty much all the royals, and I even questioned little ole Annabelle by the end! The cliffhanger ending is the biggest example of this! I'm not going to give any spoilers, but I'll say that I didn't really know where the book was going to end especially with the events leading up to it, but the ending has a HUGE cliffhanger that is pretty awesome. Basically you don't know WTF is going on and who is working with who and what's going to happen and just... AHHHH I'm VERY excited for the second book.

Unfortunately for me, there was no love triangle in this book. I was kind of hoping that Violet would develop a love triangle for Ash (her super hot forbidden companion dude that is mentioned in the synopsis of the book) and Garnet (the even hotter son of the Duchess). What can I say, I love a good love triangle! But Violet stays consistent with her with her boo Ash which has bad idea written all over it given their circumstances... but you can't blame ya girl just cuz

So if you enjoyed the atmosphere of The Selection and want a little more darker drama involving girls getting auctioned off and then used for surrogates for royalty, then this is for you! There are some darker moments where things happen you don't really expect but there are some also classic YA moments (insta-love for example). Hopefully in the rest of the series, the background of some of the main characters are revealed, more on how/why the poor girls get that weird gene, and we get some updates on some of the characters that were mentioned in the beginning that don't play as big of a role (Lily, Raven, Hazel). I'm going to give 4/5 stars only because I was a little disappointed in the lack of love triangle (ITS NOT MY FAULT GARNET IS SO HOT) and how things drug on a little bit when they got buried in details.

4/5 stars