The Jewel

Hey dudes,

Guess who's not sick anymore? Guess who finished a book? Guess who's a little shook? It's me. Wow.

The Jewel is basically about the workings of the slave trade. But not really? In this land, the daughters of the poorest people in this city occasionally have the ability to be surrogates for Royalty. They get taken from their families and are prepped to manipulate the world around them, and inside them. Then, when they come of age, they're auctioned off based off desirability. It's real wild. The main character, Violet, is auctioned off like everyone else, but she has a chance for freedom. And love. And whatever.

I'm gonna be honest, I almost didn't finish this book. First of all, some ignorant person on Goodreads asked if the book was like The Selection, which is almost forgivable. But then. Then some moron said yes. They thought this had some semblance to The Selection. If you don't know what The Selection is, the most basic explanation is futuristic Bachelor for royals. Common girls VOLUNTARILY get put in a lottery and then a bunch of girls go to the palace and compete for the prince's affections. This is about poor girls getting taken away from their families because of some test they have to take when they get their period, being put in a holding place/prison for years until they're of age and being auctioned off so they can have babies for cruel stuck up royals. Then, when they get to the home of whoever bought them, they're basically treated like animals. They drag them around on leashes. In public. In what sense of the word did this idiot think that The Jewel is similar to The Selection? It's quite mindboggling.

The other reason I almost stopped reading this book was because of the whole slavery thing. That doesn't vibe well with me. It rubs me the wrong way and I wasn't about to read a book that romanticized human slavery and treating people like less than people. That's disgusting and I wasn't going to read something like that. Fortunately, that died off quick enough so I could get in the book without feeling sick to my stomach.

After those issues, I got into it. I liked how Violet didn't cave to Stockholm syndrome or whatever. Even though the Duchess gave her nice things and gave her something resembling freedom, she didn't cave and start obeying and thinking she belonged there. I also liked how she found ways to rebel against the system. When the system's jank, you gotta screw it up.

I thought the relationship between Ash and Violet was really forced. Originally, I thought it was going to be between Violet and Garnet. Then Ash showed up, and I was like, okay, cool. Then they kissed the second time they ever met up and I thought it was all kind of rushed. Like, they hadn't known each other for a month and they were like, lol I love you. No. No, you don't. You just found someone that didn't look at you as an object and lost your mind. Honestly, a romantic relationship between Violet and her maid, Annabelle, would've been more believable to me. I actually ship that more. But I digress.

This was a good book. It wasn't great. If I wrote it, I'd have done things differently (like make her gay, and screw the system) but it was okay. I'll read the next one because it ended with me quaking. I accidentally read the first part of the summary to the next one, so I knew something was going to happen, but I didn't expect bruh to not be that bitch. I'm still quaking, shaking and baking.

Ship: Violet and Annabelle
Snake: Dr. Blythe, Stone lady, Duchess, Carnelian, royals in general
Sweet: Lucien, Ash, Dahlia
Shook: Garnet

7/10
~Book Panda