Gilded Cage

DNF @ 28%

Okay, what it comes down to is that this book is just not my cup of tea. It is interesting and has mystery going for it – including a dystopian world, but it just isn't working for me.

The 1st chapter captivated me and I was excited, but nothing is keeping me... I just don't care enough unfortunately. This isn't a bad book though, I think it just isn't for me.

What do I say about this book? I went into Gilded Cage with little to no expectations, because I honestly didn't know all that much about it. All I knew was that this book had very polarized reviews, and that it had an absolutely stunning cover. That's enough for me to want to find out how I feel about it. So, into the depths I went. I actually half read/half listened to this book and so I can tell you that both are great options. The audio may have actually been my favorite though, because the character voices were fabulous.

For the most part, I loved everything about this book. The world building was solid, the idea of magical abilities denoting the wealthy class caught my attention, and the whole concept of “days” really pulled everything together. I even loved the fact that James used his characters to show the fact that, despite how shiny it may be, a cage is still a cage. It gave me great pleasure to watch Luke fight his way through the rougher of the two situations, and yet somehow come out a better person for it. I think the character depth overall is really what sold for this for me.

However it also took one star away because I never got over the fact that the majority of the female characters here are just terrible. Abi especially got on my nerves, and nearly made me throw this book at the wall a few times. I'm just so exhausted lately by women who make bad life choices because of men. Abi, at least, was eventually mildly redeemed. She still drove me completely nuts for the vast majority of the book though. Truth be told, if things had stayed with Luke I would have been just fine!

Overall, this is an honestly solid and intriguing read! I can't wait to move on to the next book!

Though there are times when the introduction and explication of these themes sometimes feels a little heavy-handed...the fact remains that they are front-and-centre in this novel ??? something I feel is important in a YA novel, recent examples of which have had a terrible tendency to shove important themes aside in favour of whatever romantic polygon happens to be ongoing in the plot. Other readers have actually complained about how the book is so ???political???, but I for my part welcome the political nature of this novel. While many YA books claim to highlight those vital themes, not all of them actually use them as anything more than plot elements to support a romance.

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-Ao

Dystopian, totalitarian, political, well written, great story-telling. Loved it

Gilded Cage is set in an alternate version of Great Britain in which the monarchy was overthrown by people with “magic” calling themselves Equals. This revolution led to the creation of the Slavedays Compact, which requires that each citizen spend 10 years of their life as a slave, leaving the Equals free to govern.

This novel follows a teenage boy working in a slavetown and several other characters in/around a prominent Equal family, include the boy's sister Abi (who is a slave working for this family). Given its relatively short length, Gilded Cage follows a LOT of characters–even the character in a coma gets a viewpoint! None of the characters had a lot of depth, but some of them were interesting, especially one whose motivations are mysterious.

This was just interesting enough (and short enough) that I finished it, but it did have slow pacing, lots of exposition, (mostly) unremarkable prose, and bland dialogue. However, it also had a strong beginning and ending and a few characters who are at least somewhat interesting (even if their narratives seemed rather dull at times).

Rating: 5/10 (It's ok)

Full Review on My Site

Imagine having to serve 10 years of your life as a slave to the wealthy and elite. If you were born without magic, you have to. Abi thought if she could get her whole family to serve their time together at the estate of one of the most powerful families in history, everything would be great. It has to be better than the factories right? Needless to say, things don't go according to Abi's plans. This is a great story, the world created is completely screwed up and utterly fascinating. I received a copy of this book from Net Galley