Review: Bright Ruin

Bright Ruin
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

A shattered country

A world-changing magic

Magically gifted aristocrats rule Britain, and the people must serve them. But rebellion now strikes at the heart of the old order. Abi has escaped public execution, thanks to an unexpected ally. Her brother Luke is on the run with Silyen Jardine, the most mysterious aristocrat of all. And as political and magical conflicts escalate, each must decide how far they'll go for their beliefs. 

Dragons clash in the skies, as two powerful women duel for the soul of Britain. A symbol of government will blaze as it dies, and doors between worlds will open - and close forever. But the battle within human hearts will be the fiercest of all. 

I've been simultaneously anticipating this book, and dreading it because I love this trilogy, and I really didn't want it to end. I read this in one sitting, I tried to make it last as long as possible, but at the same time I couldn't put it down. Bright Ruin picks up directly from when Tarnished City left off, and we're straight in with the action. Nothing opens a book like a dragon fight eh? 

I knew straight away from the start, that this book was going to be precarious for my favourites and I was on edge from the start. I didn't even have a chance to breathe before the Renie thing happened! I'll be straight with you guys, this book is a wiiiiiiild ride, and there are so many twists and turns that even as I reached the final chapter...I still wasn't sure how it was going to end. 

I loved how we can see how far the characters have come since way back in Gilded Cage! Abi...she's changed so much, I personally feel! She's determined to fight in this book, the events from the last book have changed her. The events from this book continue to change her. She's stronger...and she's willing to do whatever it takes to bring all of this to an end. She kind of stares in to the abyss this book. 

Gavar....oh Gavar. The thing is...I know he can be kind and sort of sweet when he wants to be, and I have never stopped rooting for him to be a better person, to do the right thing and so on. I even lowkey started shipping he and Abi at one point. "Improbably decent thing to do" you nailed it Silyen, but Gavar did it anyway and he really did try to take care of Abi. I'm not sure whether he needs to grow a stronger spine or what, but I spent a lot of this book screaming at him. Again. I know why he was doing it, but I so badly wanted him to join the right team. To be the good guy I know he has the capacity to be. He just makes me scream so much, I thought I was going to end the trilogy disappointed with him, but I ended up cheering. He's been a flawed character...but also one you can cheer for. 

Silyen. Magical sociopath might be the best term I've heard to describe him, bless. I'm forever hoping for the best from my boy Silyen and getting 50/50 results, like he'll do something...kind of shady. Or you see some of his questionable motivations, and it's like really dude?! But he's kind of a genius, and while some of his methods are questionable, he is trying to work everything out and my boy does me proud this book. He's hilarious, he has feelings for Luke and I shipped it hard. I was living for their interactions, and Silyen...well...he redeemed himself for anything remotely shady he's done. I couldn't be happier with his progress throughout the trilogy!

Speaking of Luke, he isn't over the effects of what happened last book, but his cooperation and working with Silyen was brilliant and like I said...I was living for their interactions. Their relationship...you can really see it grow over the course of the book and it was brilliantly done. But man did it hit me in the feels at the end. Plus Luke, Silyen and Dog where like a very bizarre Three Musketeers as they're trying to solve the mystery of the Wonder King. Who, by the way, had me in mind of King Arthur with the whole "Fact or fiction" thing. I kinda think they need their own series! 

Bouda...I tried to see things from her point of view, and I do feel for her to an extent. But this book made it clear we would never be friends. I actually ended up fully hating her this book and I really do feel like she got off lightly. Especially as Jenner wasn't even remotely redeemed.

Bright Ruin has action from the start and this book had me so tense and on the edge of my seat as I was reading. Trying to work out who was going to betray who, who was going to die and just how the hell it was all going to be resolved! Vic also still had a lot of plot twists up her sleeve, right up until the end, literally no-one was safe and anything could happen. 

I'm kind of struggling to review this book, because it was a bloody amazing series finale and I have literally no issues with it. It was everything I'd been hoping for, and anticipating it and this trilogy has never let me down. I want to rage and shriek about this book and the feels it made me feel, but I don't want to spoil the utterly fantastic ending for you guys! Let's just say the colour red is an appropriate cover colour for this book! 

Bright Ruin has a steady pace, and the plot, tension and action builds up bringing in more and more threads, more to up the stakes, and more and more action. You can't put the book down because there's so much going on and so much tension, and you can't put it down without thinking about it excessively and aching to get back to it. I have to say...the ending was utterly perfect. It broke my heart initially, but the epilogue fixed it all, and it really choked me the hell up! 

I think all that's left to say is....thank you Vic for writing such a blindingly brilliant series. Each book has just gotten better and better, and brought more and more to the story. Your writing has been fantastic, your characters interesting and morally grey, and they've grown and changed with the story. The setting...never fails to amaze me with how clever it is. How the world has been slotted in to our own, changing our own history and tweaking it to match the book. This will remain one of my favourite trilogies of all time, and you ended this....so perfectly. So perfectly. 

Review: Tarnished City

Tarnished City
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

A corrupted city
A dark dream of power

Luke is a prisoner, condemned for a murder he didn’t commit. Abi is a fugitive, desperate to free him before magic breaks his mind. But as the Jardines tighten their grip on a turbulent Britain, brother and sister face a fight greater than their own.

New alliances and old feuds will remake the nation, leaving Abi and Luke questioning everything – and everyone – they know. And as Silyen Jardine hungers for the forgotten Skill of the legendary Wonder King, the country’s darkest hour approaches. Freedom and knowledge both come at a cost. So who will pay the price?

I have been anticipating this sequel and it's finally arrived and it's bloody brilliant. Genuinely. Jenner's prologue throws us straight back in to the thick of things as we go back to the night everything went down! It's an incredibly roller coaster right from the start! If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw my Twitter thread as I was reading! I had to take little breaks to GIF it out because of the feels! 

Jenner undergoes quite the change in this book. I was kinda ambivalent about him in the first book. I felt for the dude and he was just kind of there. I believe my words where "he needs a backbone because being nice in the world of the Equals won't be a good thing". In this book? I ate my words. He gets a little bit of an attitude. He gets sassy and he has some fight in him which was nice to see. I was hoping he'd grow some balls and lo and behold...he did. Can confirm Jenner has some balls. Unfortunately I reached a point in the book when I was like "TAKE THEM BACK VIC TAKE THEM BACK" because the nice one goes full dark side. I swore. Loudly. Even Silyen isn't quite on Jenner's level, nor is Gavar which says a lot. I want to hate Jenner, but I honestly do get where he's coming from and why he's doing what he's doing. He's still a douche but you can understand his thought process. Vic writes characters that aren't black and white, they exist in grey areas and Jenner in this book is a prime example, as are his brothers. 

Moving on to Silyen. Deep inside Silyen...way, way deep inside is a good guy, waiting to get out. You see little glimpses of it and you're rooting for him like C'mon Silyen, do the thing! He's like a butterfly encased in a cacoon of asshole, trying to get out. I spent a lot of this book trying to work out who's team Silyen is on but he makes it so hard. He's clearly out for himself, but I can't decide if his actions are going to end up being a good or bad thing for the other characters. Silyen is so intelligent and there are a million schemes he could be running, Gavar even points one out. Like I was all "Oh. It's okay, Silyen's on Team Good!" and Gavar was like "oh honey no....". There's a couple of revelations in this book that do make it harder to like him, like what he did to Gavar. What he did to Jenner isn't really his fault. But then in other parts of the book, he's trying to solve a family mystery and I just don't think he's inherently bad, I just can't work out what his angle is. He's snarktacular either way and I do love him because he makes me chuckle almost as much as I want to throttle him! It's hard to take him seriously as a bad guy when he's creeping around in a hoodie sneaking up on people. I'm still waiting for that one thing that makes me go "YES SILYEN! Good boy!" Buuuttt I'm getting this really odd vibe from him in this book. It might just be me, but some of the things going on with him in this book, give me this old sage vibe when it comes to Silyen. Like he's going to know all of this cool stuff and be the all knowing one, kind of thing. Hopefully. But it's whether or not that's going to be a good or bad thing. Sometimes I feel like he play acts at being a meanie. WHY ARE YOU SO COMPLICATED SILYEN, I JUST WANT TO LOVE YOU! 

Next we have my precious little Gavar. He's a bit more out of his asshole cocoon than Silyen, but he's not quite a blossoming butterfly yet. I'd been assured before starting this book that I'd finally have reasons to love him so I was super excited to see how his character was going to develop! Last book I felt like he wasn't as bad as he seemed despite evidence to the contrary. This book he proved that. He truly cares about his daughter, and is willing to defend her against his family and everyone else. We get a lot more insight in to him in this book, and I had the feeling someone did something to him that made the whole Leah thing happen and it turns out I wasn't wrong. That's literally the only time throughout two books I've been right about something so I was super stoked! Gavar really comes in to his own in this book, you see his thoughts and what he thinks and it's more along the right lines than his families. He understands how to improve things for the commoners and make things better but he won't be listened to. He can see what needs to be done basically. He goes full Dracary's but without the assistance of a dragon at one point, I was like 'you go Gavar!'. He's also got his sassy pants on, there where so many times I want to applaud him. Gavar finally does some things this book that really make me love him, and I'm excited to see how much he can develop over the course of the final book. In book one I wanted to like him and I could see he was on his way towards that, and this book allows me to love him without feeling guilty. He does have an interesting situation, with what Silyen has done Gavar is going to have his own struggles and it's going to be interesting to see what's going to happen to him! He is my favourite of this book, and him in the final scene was damn near cinematic and badass! I lowkey ship him and Abi on the strength of that scene too, FIGHT ME. 

In the first book, both Gavar and Silyen while doing bad things...you had to wonder about them. They're two of the characters that where most existing in that grey area of being neither inherently bad or good. They thought they where doing the right thing, it was all about the nuance of the scene. Gavar moves in one direction, but Silyen stays in this in-between place, and Jenner has joined him...although I think he's leaning more towards the bad side to be honest, but like I said...I can see why he does what he does. 

Luke is thrown in to a more desperate situation, and quite frankly it's one of the most chilling. He doesn't lose his fight, he's determined to keep on top of things and not to give up, but his POV is just so chilling because of what goes on with him. We know what the Equals can do and in this POV, we explore the mental aspects of that. Luke is having his brain messed with and it's so brilliantly written it sends a shiver up your spine. 

Abi I'm loving in this book, she really comes in to her own and comes out of her shell...or out from behind the book! She's determined to save her brother, and get some answers and she does whatever it takes to find Meilyer and the others. But she doesn't stop there, she becomes a lot more daring in this book and it was nice to see, I was hoping her character would go in this direction a bit more and I was cheering for her! She masterminds a plot or two of her own as well and I was cheering for her so much! She's just become such a lively character compared to book one! It was nice to see this change in her and I can't wait to see what she's going to do in the next book, she's changed a lot over the course of this book and it's so brilliant! 

A lot of ur other favourite characters are back, Meilyer who I wasn't sure how to feel about in this book after the last one. He's changed a lot after last book and he was one of the 'grey area' characters to me until the truth came out pretty swiftly. Badass Bodina makes her return and I empathised with her so much in this book, she never stopped fighting no matter what happened. Renie and the rest of the club are back although we don't see all that much of them, we do get a lot of Renie which was nice! She and Abi make quite the team! Dog pops up...he's so creepy and he's Silyen's new BFF which is a questionable decision if you ask me. 

The dislikable characters are back in force and I really didn't think I could hate Papa Jardine more than I did before, but this book proved that I can. My hatred for him knows no bounds and I'm not Bouda's biggest fan either. I get her. I understand what she wants, and it's even pretty admirable...if she wasn't going to screw over all the commoners to get to it. I would even admire her determination if I didn't dislike her so much. She earned her place on my hate list in this book and that's all I'm going to say! As for Jon...I can't for the life of me work out if he's an ally or not. We get some interesting information on him, but I really can't work out if he's playing Abi and co or if he's playing Bouda, it's brilliantly done! Vic keeps you guessing but without it being tiresome, every time you decide one way something happens to make you go hmmmm and change your mind again!

Along with our old faces, we get some brilliant new characters in this book that I'm excited to see more of! Midsummer in particular is one of my new favourites! I liked her immediately, I'm not going to lie and that was on the strength of her giving Gavar some side eye. I'm so hoping for a load more of her in the next book because she has such a badass scene! We also have Coira who I'm so intrigued by! She's quite fiery too, I so badly want to know what her past is! I'm hoping she'll have a part to play in the next book!

Vic continues to create brilliant characters, they make you feel the full range of emotions, there's some you flat out hate, some you flat out love, and then there's the grey area characters I keep talking about that are neither. They're somewhere in between, some of them are leaning more one way than the other, but Vic really creates and explores her characters personalities brilliantly. As well as exploring human nature a bit in this book too. 

The multi POV's continue, we mostly get Abi and Luke much like last book, but we get quite a bit of Gavar, and Silyen too as well as Bouda. So we get the POV from all angles, and we can see what's going on with each faction as it where. Which is so necessary in a book like this with such an intricate plot and so much going on. You can see the two factions kind of racing each other as you see what one's doing to counter the other and it really keeps the pace moving forward and still doesn't give too much away either so it keeps you guessing! It also helps flesh out the characters and the world so much! 

I really do love the mashup of old and new in this book, it's such a unique and original world. There's the more old fashioned aspects at some of the estates, mixed in with modern things like phones and so on. This book has ensured I'll never be able to look at Trafalgar Square the same way again, I'm not going to lie! Vic takes our world and has subtly altered the history, tweaking and changing things, so it's recognisably our world...but it's not. But it's also vivid and believable. The first book was mostly contained to the estate and to the slave town and this book lets us venture further out. Not just to other places like Scotland, but we get to see London and some other locations too. Buuutt the coolest thing is seeing how the country at large reacts to the Equals, and there's a real celebrity air about them, the Jardines are almost like the Royal family at one point. I was picturing some of the big well known images of the Royal family for certain scenes. Or perhaps a certain President. Just saaaayin. 

Another thing I loved about this book? All the history to the world of the book. I'm so fascinated about it and in this book we get a tonne more and I was loving it! History has been tweaked so damn brilliantly. We learn what happened with Napoleon and some more of the Jardine history and what the worlds currently like and what the political climate is like. But then we get hit with some of the more grisly history to the world and go further back. There's an incredibly horrifying old tradition that quite frankly was sickening and to be honest, it was all too easy to picture the final scene of the book. 

Vic writes the Equals perfectly, it's so chilling reading about what they can do and seeing their power in action. And they're getting stronger. It's brutal and it makes you shudder at the thought. I love that Vic doesn't shy away from writing the darker parts, it's part of what draws you in and gets you invested. Your on Abi and Luke's side because of it, and it has such an impact on you as you're reading, you can't help but respond to it because it's so vividly written. You can see it all happening, and thanks to the brutal detail it's all too easy to imagine how you'd feel. Add in the way a lot of the characters are written, neither being good nor bad and it makes for such a fascinating read. Things and people change over the course of the book, flowing with what happens and influences them. 

The writing is brilliant. It draws you in to the story, the world building is fantastic and carries on in this book building up more and more of the world with more history and more detail. The storytelling  is aided by the beautiful and chilling descriptions. "Like golden wounds in the black hide of the castle, dripping fiery blood". I love the writing. It's so perfect for the book, and the atmosphere and the visual Vic's going for. It all combines to give you this image and atmosphere. 

I was hooked to the page right from the start, the pace is fantastic, and there's so many plot twists and turns and betrayals that I didn't see coming. Tarnished City is a true rollercoaster ride right from page one. The stakes are getting higher and higher, and things are getting darker and taking a more vicious and chilling turn as the plot builds up more and more, towards the grand finale that is book three. Touches are being added here and there to build up the plot more and more. I had like 50 pages left and no idea who to trust, because Vic keeps you guessing and guessing. There's some truly shocking developments in this book and a spectacular final scene. Vivid from the start, the final scene was truly epically cinematic. I'm so excited for book three despite the pain it'll no doubt induce! 

Tarnished City is all round brilliantly written and plotted. It's darker, bloodier, sinister and way more chilling than the previous book. The politics are sinister and aren't entirely irrelevant in today's society. The characters are fantastically brought to life and so very human, clinging to the little hope they have. The ending had me full out cheering (silently) at 2 in the morning and I finished the book absolutely knackered from the whirlwind it took me on, this is truly one of my favourite series! 

BLOG TOUR: Gilded Cage

Hey guys! 

Welcome to todays blog tour stop for Gilded Cage! I completely loved the book and I'm excited to share that with you! My review for the book is down below, but first....I have an exciting article from Vic James to share with you all! I'm genuinely excited about this article, it's all about Vic's research at the Vatican Archives...how awesome is that!? I am incredibly jealous that she got to go to there and read through all the books and...I can't even. Just read and you'll see why I'm so jealous!  So without further ado here's the author herself... 

Let’s give the Vatican Archives their full name, shall we? The Archivum Secretum Vaticanum. There – doesn’t that sound even sexier?  

 They sit in the heart of the Vatican, nestled next to the slightly-less-secret Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, in which you work at desks beneath a vaulted ceiling painted with extraordinary frescos. 

I spent a year living in Rome, finishing a doctorate on English Catholic writing in the reign of Charles I. (Yes, that’s why the divergence-point for the alternate Britain of GILDED CAGE is the English Civil War! Poor old Charles, beheaded by Cromwell’s regime in real life, meets an even worse fate in GILDED CAGE: magically tortured to death by a wicked revolutionary aristocrat.)  

In Charles’s reign, a century on from Henry VIII’s Reformation, England was a Protestant country. To the Vatican, England was a rogue state that required re-conversion. While in Britain, Catholics had been enemies of the state, hunted down and persecuted. With the reign of Catholic-sympathising Charles I, that persecution finally eased.
So the period was ripe with intrigue. States took an interest in the political affairs of other countries, and tried to gather intelligence on them and influence them. (Yep, politics never changes….) I was studying documents relating to the Vatican’s intelligence-gathering on Britain, and the English Catholics living in Europe.
Here’s where the Secret Archive (ASV) gets really incredible. Its catalogues are hand-written. These indexes are often centuries old. I had to do a master’s degree in Renaissance bibliography just to be able to read the handwriting and learn how to handle the texts!  

It’s also all in Latin and Italian, so to be granted access to the Archive, I was interviewed in Italian about my research. I can read Latin, but talking Italian was a whole other matter. I used my dismal picked-up Italian mostly to order coffee. It didn’t help that the librarian interviewing me was one of the most handsome men I’ve ever met. Oh dear! I mumbled my way through and, incredibly, they gave me a researcher’s pass.
So that was that. I spent many happy hours in the ASV, during one of the most memorable years of my life. There is something miraculous about the survival of letters and documents long after the person who wrote them is dead. In the blots of ink, the gradual fading-out of ink before a pen was re-dipped and replenished, you are so close to long-lost lives.  

Although GILDED CAGE is set in the present day, I’ve had to reimagine two thousand years of British history to write the Dark Gifts trilogy. Figures from those past centuries have breathed and spoken to me, as I’ve written, just as they did when I handled those documents in Rome.  

And then, a few years later, I saw the movie version of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons in which the Vatican Archives are shown looking like this and … NOPE.

Thank you so much for having me on your blog, Alisha, for asking such a cool question, and for loving GILDED CAGE! If anyone has any questions - come and find me on Twitter @drvictoriajames !

Vic James is a current affairs TV director who loves stories in all their forms, and Gilded Cage is her debut novel. She as twice judged the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, has made films for BBC1, BBC2, and Channel 4 News, and is a huge Wattpadd.com success story. Under its previous title, Slavedays, her book was read online over a third of a million times in first draft. And it went on to win Wattpad’s ‘Talk of the Town’ award in 2015 – on a site showcasing 200 million stories. Vic James lives and works in London.

Gilded Cage by Vic James is the first installment of the Dark Gifts Trilogy. It is published in paperback 26 January 2017 by Pan Macmillan £7.99

There are a lot of fantastic blogs taking part in this tour so check out the rest of the stops! 

And now....on to the review! As per usual, I got carried away and wrote way too much! 

Gilded Cage

Rating: 5/5

Buy or Borrow: Buy 

Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

NOT ALL ARE FREE.

NOT ALL ARE EQUAL.

NOT ALL WILL BE SAVED.

Our world belongs to the Equals—aristocrats with magical gifts—and all commoners must serve them for ten years. But behind the gates of England's grandest estate lies a power that could break the world.

A girl thirsts for love and knowledge.

Abi is a servant to England's most powerful family, but her spirit is free. So when she falls for one of the noble-born sons, Abi faces a terrible choice. Uncovering the family's secrets might win her liberty, but will her heart pay the price?

A boy dreams of revolution.

Abi's brother, Luke, is enslaved in a brutal factory town. Far from his family and cruelly oppressed, he makes friends whose ideals could cost him everything. Now Luke has discovered there may be a power even greater than magic: revolution.

And an aristocrat will remake the world with his dark gifts.

He is a shadow in the glittering world of the Equals, with mysterious powers no one else understands. But will he liberate—or destroy?  

The thing that sold me on this book was the synopsis! The comparisons intrigued me, but it was the synopsis that hooked me in! But I still wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I started to read the book. I threw the comparisons to Red Queen and Game of Thrones out of my head almost immediately because it became obvious that this was nothing like either, it was something entirely different to both, and better! 

The opening of the book was enticing and I was immediately intrigued by the world of the book. It was modern, but the estate had an old timey vibe thanks to the horses and a few other things. I really liked the mashup, I'm not going to lie, and I'm assuming that's why this is compared to Red Queen. The world of Red Queen is way different to this, it's more fantasy-ish with some modern things sprouting up. This world, is very modern and dystopian, and it's the Equals I feel that have an old timey vibe to them, as well as the estate! 

I really enjoyed the characters both main and supporting. Our main three characters are Luke, Abi and Silyen. We get Luke and Abi's POV's the most, and I really felt for Luke and I admired how he made the best of a bad situation and threw himself in to helping others even though he was in an environment where most people wouldn't bother. I was rooting for him and enjoyed his journey in the book. He and Abi are both brave and kind people, and while I was sad for them, I did enjoy seeing how the world effected them. Abi was determined to get her brother back, and she knew something weird was going on both with Leah and after the incident with Bouda, and she wasn't afraid to poke about. If I had to pick, I might have to pick Luke as my favourite! My thing with Abi was that Luke was out there taking part in this revolution, but when he got to the estate Abi was more cautious, and after reading Luke's exploits, Abi's kind of paled in comparison, but I'm excited to see where she's going to go in the next book, but more on that later! OH and I loved the Club by the way. You know....the rebellious group in Millmoor that was full of nerds and hackers and completely freaking awesome! 

Along with our loveable characters we also have those that are less so. The Equals are powerful, Gavar has no problems with blowing things up, and most terrifyingly of all..Equals can mess with your mind, as was brilliantly and chillingly shown with Abi's POV. Most of the Equals also have a penchant for cruelty, and I do like a dark read, so I really enjoyed how the author didn't flinch back from showing us just how cruel and evil the Equals could be, as well as exploring that grey area between good and bad. There where characters that I hated and will always hate, like Papa Jardine. But there where other characters that I couldn't decide on. They weren't wholly bad/evil, but the weren't angels either, which quite frankly, made them all the more fascinating to read about. Every single day you see people doing what these characters do, it's all about nuance, and people do things thinking they're doing it for the right reason, and people who do things for the wrong reasons and so on. 

In this category we have Silyen and Gavar. We get both POV's but Silyen is one of the main three. I just couldn't decide how I felt about them throughout the book, but I wanted to understand them and I wanted to like them, I was genuinely reading like "Come on guys, I really want to like you, GIVE ME A REASON!". Silyen was uber creepy, and his POV added a nice dose of foreboding more than once. He does good things, but he does them as part of whatever plan he's putting in to motion and I just cannot decide if he's doing something good or bad. I wavered between the both over the course of the book. Whatever he's doing I'm fairly certain he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons, whether or not he's doing a good or bad thing. 

Gavar was another character, although the author has reassured me I will get reasons to love Gavar so I'm excited! Right from the beginning, Gavar was in the 'bad' column. He's big and scary and ragey and I just figured he was the big bad guy. But then as we saw more of him throughout the book, I started to wonder if he's really all that bad. I started to wonder if he had a reason for what he did at the beginning of the book, if he regretted it, or if it was a rash decision he made in anger. Because for someone who's seemingly as bad as he is, he really does love his daughter, and he's really nice to a ten year old slave. I think it was the scene when he was berating a servant for knocking in to Daisy that had me wondering about him. Then we got his POV and I started to understand him a bit better and I related to him and I really understood him when you saw him and his father together and how he felt, plus he really did care about Leah. And then he does the Thing for Daisy and I was like damn Gavar! Because everytime he does a good thing, he also does bad things. But the more the book went on the more you saw Gavar doing these good things and I was like JUST LET ME LOVE YOU GAVAR. GIVE ME A REASON PLEASE. 

These characters. They really make you feel all the feels, and they really make you think too! There's plenty of other fascinating characters throughout the book, Jackson, the Angel, Renie (like Genie ;) ), Jenner, and Daisy. Daisy though...man I wanted to shake her in the beginning, hero worshipping Gavar. Of course as the book went on and I started to struggle with my feels about Gavar I minded it less. Jenner I couldn't decide on because I didn't see much of him. I do feel like he needed more of a backbone though, because he's so damn nice and in the world of the Equals...I don't think that's a good thing. Bouda, was admirable in her determination but hard to like, and then there's Papa Jardine. He was such an a-hole. I'm 99% sure he's sleeping with who I think he is and I really want Gavar to go for him. Genuinely Gavar is one of those characters who's kind of an a-hole but you still root for them to be better, and they ended up being your precious flower and you don't like people who are mean to them :') I got so emotionally invested in this book because all of the characters....they just grab you and they've all had bad experiences, none of them are little rays of sunshine who've had it easy. 

There's suffering and pain, and it makes you so emotionally attached to the characters it's unreal. Whatever a character does...it has consequences. Ones that you can see, and feel and it was SO well done. I also loved how believable the characters and their reactions to things where, it made the book more enjoyable and more authentic. And I have to say, all of the female characters are so well written, it was brilliant to see in a book. 

I just love how the author has created these characters that make you think, they're neither good nor bad, they're in that grey area and it brings up all these questions. It's made reading such an experience! I have to say, I'm really loving the authors writing style. It pulls you in, I loved her writing and imagery, and I love how she's created this world, and she's gone all out. The book, the plot, the characters, it's all so rich and well developed and so brilliantly done. It's authentic. She doesn't flinch from the hard stuff. Like the slavery thing. She goes all out. She doesn't flinch from the ugliness of it, it's all there in the story. Then she balances that with the hope you feel through Luke and the rest of the Club, and the friendship between the group. You see this dark, ugly place, but there's this little ray of light in it. The subject is given the gravity it needs and is just so well balanced with everything else. 

I really should mention the multi POV's in a bit more detail! Obviously Abi and Luke are regulars, and you get Silyen and Gavar a couple of times, but you also get a couple of others like Bouda and Euterpe. I just really loved it. You got to know some of the characters a little bit better, you got to understand them and their motivations. Each character had their own voice, different from the others so you could tell who was who without the name at the top of the page. It kept the pace of the book going, and added to it, it provided a lot of the reveals and a lot of information that we needed to know. Plus it added the tension because you'd finish one POV and be like...no...NO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT YOU CAN'T CHANGE TO ANOTHER PERSON. Then you'd read the next POV and it would be the SAME situation! 

I think the world was excellently built, you understood the politics and the history and wanted to know more about it, and there's a lot more to learn I think! But I also enjoyed the little things, like you know...some of the people at Millmoor casually doing a chat show with a radio in Australia who's government and situation is entirely different. I loved that aspect. I was curious to know which other countries didn't have Equals in charge and I really enjoyed the varying politics and situations of the countries. No one country is exactly the same, and this book follows that rather than having the whole world in the same situation. I enjoyed the magical system, and learning about it, plus it was nicely terrifying like I said, because they can mess with your memory. There is nothing more terrifying than that! Plus there's lots of secrets about it still to be found out! 

Okay. So I loved the book. I even have a complicated relationship with Gavar going on. (Please Vic. PLEASE HAVE MEANT IT WHEN YOU SAID THERE WHERE REASONS. I need justification for semi-loving such a usually mean character!). But there is one tiny little problem that I had. Just one. I love romance okay, and I was excited for some romance between Abi and Jenner. Abi is frequently mentioned to be reading those cheesy/trashy romance novels with Equals instead of like Aliens or whatever. So I was intrigued to see how the author was going to do it. Especially as she's intelligent enough that she's on her way to med school, and Jenner was marginally responsible for Luke ending up in Millmoor and all the things she see's the Equals do over the course of the book. But we didn't actually see that much of Jenner. We didn't see much of the romance. We saw Abi having a crush on Jenner, one of the people who technically owns her, sure he's nice and he's not like the others, but he does what his mummy tells him and when the Thing with Bouda happens...does he do anything. Nope. He angsts it out to Silyen who says one of his best lines ever and I actually cackled. The romance isn't a huge focus of the book, I was just disappointed as the romance is mentioned on the book, and we hardly see it develop, there's the odd moment and then there's that huge show between the two of them at the end and it just felt a bit odd seeing as throughout all of Abi's POV we've hardly seen her and Jenner together or interacting. It almost seemed like it didn't need to be there to me. Plus Jenner rubbed me up the wrong way when he told Abi he asked his father for her and she was like "I know" like...dude. I would punch anyone who said that to me! 

The ending though. I can't even. The reveal that I didn't see coming a mile off and really should have put together had me gasping out loud and shrieking like a banshee. Then Abi...damn. I really, really want more of her in the next book because my opinion of her shot up at that point. I just can't with the ending, and I need more NOW! I have to wait until September but it's just SO FAR. I also really want to see more of Euterpe and Sosigenes (I really hope I spelt his name right from memory), and their history, whether it's in this trilogy or whether it's in ebooks or whatever! There's so much to this world that you want to know more about, I'd happily read a history book on this world and the magic in it! 

Gilded Cage is a brilliant, rich, complex and vivid read that makes you feel real emotion as you make your way through the book. It explores the nuances between good and bad. Doing good things for the wrong reasons and bad things for the right. It makes you think. There's suffering all around and your heart will break for you favourites. Gavar and Silyen provide an interesting crisis for you as you try to work out whether they're really all that bad. (JUST ONE REASON GUYS COME ON!). You really want to like them, you really want them to be redeemable and I'm looking forward to seeing if they are or not. The more evil characters are truly that and I feel a burning hatred for them. The magic system is fascinating and the Equals are not only cruel but terrifying thanks to one power of theirs. The female characters are brilliantly written and strong. Gilded Cage has many, many twists, none of which I saw coming, and I was gasping and shrieking and going "no no no" when I was reading the book and I hate to think what my face was doing! There are so many OMG moments throughout the book, and as the world sucks you in, it becomes very hard to put down. 

Gilded Cage is brilliantly written, original, unique, and utterly engrossing. You'll want to know more about the world, the magic, the history and the characters and you won't want the book to end because that ending....I mean...wow. Talk about leaving you wanting more! I genuinely haven't been emotionally attached to characters to this degree before, it's kind of insane, and it's a world that has stuck with me even though I'm long since finished with reading it! I'm incredibly excited to see where this is going, and to see what more there is to learn!