Review: The Jewel by Amy Ewing

Title: The Jewel
Author: Amy Ewing
Publication date: September 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
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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.

 
The Jewel starts out with everything I love: gorgeous cover, detailed prose, and conflicted heroine. The main character, Violet, lives in a society where the royalty need girls with special ability to be surrogate mothers for their babies. Those surrogate mothers come from the poorest part of the country, and their somehow genetic mutation allows them to bring royalty’s babies without any flaws. Not only that, those surrogates have auguries: special ability that enable them to modify growth, color, and shape of anything, even living things. Violet has the most impressive ability in growth; a quality that is most prized by Duchess of Lake who bought her. Thrown into swirls of luxuries, dirty royal scandals, and everyone’s own scenarios, Violet must learn how to survive in this glittering community.

When I first picked up The Jewels, it started out wonderful. I love the intricate details of the gowns, the beautiful rooms, and the dazzling city of Jewel.

The room is enormous. Glowglobes cast a warm light on the walls, papered in pale green, and the furniture scattered about the room is upholstered in shades of green and gold. There are dressers, an armoire, a vanity, plush armchairs with footstools, a sofa, a small breakfast table, and a large fireplace. Dark green curtains cover the windows, gold tasseled ropes hanging at their sides—they block out the light completely, so I can’t tell whether it’s day or night outside.

That sounds absolutely gorgeous! Violet seems to share the same sentiment with me, and she can’t keep herself from gushing over her new room and her beautiful shiny violin. Of course, however, she later learns that there is monster hidden in seemingly picture-perfect things.

I devoured this book until I reached the romance part. Then, the story went downhill so fast. The instant attraction and what-they-call-true-love come very very soon after they meet. I’m sorry but I can’t see you putting your life in danger for someone whom you’ve barely talked to. No just no sorry.

The Jewel ends in an okay way, leaving some questions to be answered in the second book. I guess I’ll be waiting for reviews to come before picking up the second book. Fans of The Selection series by Kiera Cass would love the echo of royals life and beautiful details in The Jewel. The Jewel has great premise and flowy writing, and if you can get past the insta-love, I think you might enjoy this book.

I see the rose-shaped bars on the windows of the dormitories, set in the pale pink stone of the holding facility. I see the faces of the other surrogates, the girls who will go back inside once this train leaves and never think of us again. My gaze falls on a twelve-year-old girl with bulging brown eyes. She is so thin, and clearly malnourished; she must be new. Our eyes meet, and she crosses the fingers on her right hand and presses them against her heart.

I step into the carriage and the doors close behind me.

 

 3 cups of tea!

The writing is beautiful. Good light read.

 

Review: Luminosity by Stephanie Thomas

Beatrice is a seer with ability to see the future, but lately she keeps having strange dreams. In her dreams, she meets Echo, a beautiful guy who is wearing the clothes of her enemy. Echo is one of the Dreamcatchers, people with ability to shatter another person’s mind with their touch. Echo is her enemy, yet Beatrice feels strangely attracted to him. Her loyalty starts to waver along with Echo’s constant appearance, and when the Dreamcatchers attack, Beatrice needs to decide what she has to do in order to save her city and the citizens.

To tell you the truth, it’s… painful to finish this book. There are things that bug me a lot when I read this book. I’m very, very confused: why don’t they seem to have war strategies prepared ahead? I’m not asking for strategies on Sun Tzu's level, but I just found it very strange that the seers seem to be very eager to throw their lives away. Why don’t they asses their situation calmly and split themselves into groups, instead of running in a big group and try to kill as many as possible without any strategy prepared? The Keeper, the one who controls the city, doesn’t seem to plan any strategy in order to save her seers. I mean, I know that the seers are disposable, but surely it won’t hurt to keep victims in your side as low as possible, right?

Another thing that I found really strange is the fact that Beatrice’s loyalty is toyed between the Keeper, whom she has practically known all her life, and the man whom she has met only in her dreams. Echo might be gorgeous, yes, but it’s not like I would turn my back against my own team because of the guy whom I only meet in my dreams. What does Echo actually do to make Beatrice believe in him? (Aside from being gorgeous, mind you) I just can’t see myself to betray my own city, my own friends, because of things a mysterious guy said in my dreams. I really wish that Echo had brought more evidences to make Beatrice believe in him.

This book is too bizarre for me to truly enjoy and I’m not a fan of the world-building either, so it took me some time to finish it. I admire Beatrice’s strength though, and I really wished that there were a competition to begin with between Echo and Brandon, Beatrice’s best friend. I like Brandon, it seems like he truly cares for Beatrice. Echo is too vague for me to actually feel anything for him, so I can’t say much about him.

I can’t really recommend Luminosity, but I figure that since many of my friends have read this book and enjoyed it, some of you might as well end up liking it. I might be curious enough to pick the sequel though, because I want to see what will happen to Beatrice, Echo, and Brandon. Hopefully we can see more inside Echo’s head in the sequel, and more background story to enhance the story! :)

I am standing on a bridge, gun cradled under my armpit, combat jumpsuit soiled and stained with the grime of the City. The screams of innocent people reverberate from everywhere around me, and I don’t know which way to run. Everyone needs to be saved, and yet, I cannot save everyone. But somehow, the weight of it is on me, and it’s a heavy, suffocating weight. One I don’t want to carry, never wanted to carry, and yet I must.

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I rate this book:

Three cups of tea. Not really my cup of tea, but some people might like it.

Review: The Glimpse by Claire Merle

I was confused when I first read it. I’m still confused now that I’ve finished it. The Glimpse is a very different take on dystopian genre. Sanity has never been deeply questioned, and people in dystopian worlds usually struggle with physical enemy like war, famine, or lack of natural resources. The Glimpse shows a frightening possibility of economic collapse and how government discriminates people by their DNA tests. I have to say that the idea is very original and it held such amazing premise.

However, there are parts in this book that bugged me. I didn’t understand the world. I had to restart reading it after forty pages because I couldn’t understand the story. Is it just me or the dialogues are really complicated? Sometimes I just hope that the characters would say the reason or fact out loud so I could understand what they mean. The answers in this book are implied, not stated. Sometimes I like it, but most of the time, I was simply lost.

With all the adventures and troubles Ana faced, I should have felt some kind of connection toward her. However, I wasn’t deeply emotionally invested with her. I know she’s smart, but most of the time she has a knack of not thinking ahead. Ana was instantly drawn to Cole, the main interest of this story, and I found their instant romance hard to believe. Maybe they’re meant to be, just like ‘the glimpse’, some sort of prophecy that Cole had seen in his dream, showed. However, I think the time is too short for Ana to hopelessly fall in love with Cole. I also think it very strange that the title of this book is ‘The Glimpse’, since in my opinion we are given very little information about the glimpse. It wouldn’t hurt if Jasper could have a bigger part in this book too.

I usually avoid books which involve mental institution since I always feel sorry for the patients. The mental institution in this book is horrible. I hate the absurd, crazy, and ridiculous treatment they give to the patients. The doctors and nurses are supposed to help, not making the patients worse. It’s impossible to lead a normal life after you’ve experienced living there, just like Ana discovered later.

For me, The Glimpse is a take it-or-leave it book. I like it but there are some flaws I just can’t ignore. If you’re interested in psychology, then you may want to give this book a go. I like reading Ana’s deep thinking, and she’s certainly a very interesting character to watch!

She wondered if what she was doing proved more than any suicidal mother or DNA tests that she belonged among the Crazies. The deceit, the danger, her curiosity – surely a normal Pure girl would be running for her life right now? But Ana was still there. Because, beneath her determination to help Jasper, there was also the fact that she’d been waiting years to take control of her future. Because like a wooden puppet in a fairy tale, when she’d ventured into the City, the strange, dark place had brought her to life.
 

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I rate this book:
                                   Three cups of tea. I like it.  Recommended to read in spare time.

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Come on. What are you afraid of?

It’s incredible, the moment when you’re halfway through a book and realize that you’re going to fall in love with it. It is the kind of book that makes you breathless when you’re reading it and in the end, all you want to do is just to hug the book and congratulate the author. I have the pleasure to tell you that Divergent is one of these books.

I came to Divergent with super high expectation and I’m really glad that I was not even slightly disappointed. The pacing! The worldbuilding! The characters! The well-written plots! Divergent is practically dripping with awesomeness.

Tris is a character I absolutely adore. She’s strong, smart, and brave beyond words. She’s amazing. I was so protective over Tris, and it enraged me that people around her underestimates her just because she couldn’t kick or throw punches well. You can’t judge a person simply by their brute strength.

The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy.

Oh, I want a bracelet with these words engraved! Never had I read a quote that speaks my mind most cleverly. There is such fragile, thin line that separates courage and simply suicide act. Divergent makes me think about the description of bravery and strength. In the end, I conclude that a strong person is someone who can control their strength, and uses it to protect innocent people around them. Someone who knows border between fearlessness and arrogance.

Divergent is harsh. There are so many moments when Tris and Four have to show the ruthless side of them. I like it that both characters are not perfect and their flaws make them even more real. If Divergent is ever turned into a movie, I’m wondering what the rating would be. There are too many contents that won’t be suitable for younger teenager. For example, the whole Dauntless initiation. I can see that Dauntless initiation has good aim but the implementation is horrible. There is great possibility of death in the initiation and in one way, it’s like the forest law when the weak one is eliminated from the picture because they can’t survive the fight and the killing.

I think what Veronica Ross did in this book is very brave. She makes me questioned many things after reading this book. Virtue, selflessness, bravery… everything seems blurry and gray suddenly. I keep feeling that there is such a thin line between brutality and what you have to do. Everyone has their own reasons for their doing. Each person protects on what they believe most, and I just wish that some people in this book can see things from different perspectives.

Divergent is an amazing read and I’m completely in love with the world in this book. This book is highly recommended, especially to fans of Dystopian genre. I think I might get myself three copies of this book: one to reread over and over, one for display in my bookshelf, and the last to lend to my friends so I can spread the wonderfulness of Divergent.

As we walk toward the Pit, I repeat the line Will quoted to myself so I don’t forget it.

I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. 

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I rate this book:

Five cups of tea. Genius. Beautiful, haunting, and lively characters. Reading this is an overwhelming experience. Must read at least once in a lifetime!