"Sold for six million diamantes, Violet is now the Surrogate of the House of the Lake in the centre of the Lone City, the Jewel. Her sole purpose is to produce a healthy heir for the Duchess – a woman Violet fears and despises.
Violet is trapped in a living death, her name and body no longer her own. She fights to hold on to her own identity and sanity, uncertain of the fate of her friends, isolated and at the mercy of the Duchess."
2 stars
So I could write a really long rant for this book, but I'm going to do it the easier way. Following is a collection of lines from this book that I hated. And why I hated them. Though that's really obvious.
Also, naming the main character Violet because she has violet eyes doesn't sound like such a bad thing until you realise she has a sister named Hazel and a brother names Ochre, and a friend named Raven who has a twin named Crow and that a random guy named Cobalt exists. Then even Violet starts sounding like a terrible name.
⚠️ Screaming in all caps may ensue.
Her not-like-the-others-ness
"But some of the girls follow all the gossip."
"Lily loves the Electress, like many of the girls at Southgate."
And of course, you don't, Violet.
"The only pictures in Lily’s magazines that ever interested me were the ones of the concerts."
Yes of course, because being interested in dresses and hairstyles and royalty gossip is so basic.
"Never in all my twenty-nine years as a physician have I ever seen anything like this,” he murmurs."
She's so speshul 😍
Cliche-ness going through the roof
"claw-footed copper bathtub"
I could find 2734878273 other books with this line.
"We turn down another hall lined with massive gold-framed portraits—their eyes seem to follow me as I go"
"smooths out a nonexistent wrinkle in my dress"
The author is so original, I can't-
"Abruptly, she stands, and the softness falls away, replaced with the rigid mask I’m accustomed to."
Aww, villain Duchess having a soft moment so adoraybl.
"I have the strongest urge to run my fingers over his forearms."
Just me putting this line in here because I hated it.
"A lock of brown hair has fallen over his forehead and I have the strongest urge to brush it back, to run my fingers through his hair."
Violet's lunacy
"Carnelian. What a stupid name."
Yeah, you're one to talk
"[Her love interest] spoke to me like a person, even for just a few minutes . . . it was like exhaling after holding my breath for too long."
The fact that she doesn't accept the maids as people just shows how much of a hypocrite she's being every time she wants respect from the Duchess. Anabelle (her maid) always treated her "like a person".
"I inhale his scent of soap and clean linen and something that must be boy."
I don't really need to comment on this but-
SOMETHING THAT MUST BE BOY
I'M SORRY WHAT
"My heart explodes into a million glittering fragments that rain down like fireworks through my chest."
I have so many questions
"I laugh, but he doesn’t, so I stop. Is he serious?"
Um no, I think he's not laughing because people don't laugh at their own jokes.
"If it was Hazel being sent away on that train and I could save her by taking her place, I would do it in a heartbeat."
She wants to send an 'I'm okay' message to her friend across the fence-
"More flowers might be too conspicuous, with winter approaching."
SO SHE DECIDES TO ATTACH A RIBBON TO THE VINE BECAUSE SURE THAT IS THE MOST NATURALLY GROWING THING IN THE WORLD.
"I feel myself dissolve into a thousand molecules, amazed at how three small words can completely alter my state of being."
You were always made of molecules, Violet
"The things Ash has revealed to me about the royalty, about his profession, about how he’s treated within the walls of the Jewel . . . to anyone else I think it would be impossible to understand why he would do it, or how he could. But not to me."
Wow, you're so great to be able to understand why he has to have a job. Purrfect for each other.
Just other dumb stuff
"It has a secret, second compartment, and I dump out the earrings and bracelets and pendants and pop the bottom out."
Since when do Duchesses give surrogates jewellery boxes with secret compartments that they don't know about? I really hope this is explained in the next books because I refuse to believe she found some sEcReT, sEcOnD cOmPaRtMeNt that nobody else knew about.
"You seem like a fairly intelligent girl."
Um, no
"I have been changed, forged into someone wiser and stronger than I used to be. I have grown up."
This is the most forced character arc I have ever seen, and it's not even true.
I didn't like any of the characters, and the spare world-building hardly gave me an idea of what was happening. There were too many colours and beautiful things, and it felt very unreal. It was a modern world without really being modern. Hopefully, the other books explain it more, and for whatever reason, I'm going to read them someday.
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