Not in the sense of being assigned, but in the sense that I kept compulsively picking up The Jewel to read and couldn’t stop myself from flipping ahead in order to make sure everybody was okay. I can’t remember the last book I had to read. As she comes face to face with the fact that she will be impregnated against her will, she discovers a way out-a way out that will compromise her budding but secret relationship with a male companion. Already ambivalent about her role, her purchase by the cold and mercurial Duchess of the Lakes whisks her into a world of privilege, servitude, deceit, and danger. Violet Lasting is Lot #197 for the upcoming auction. The surrogate system, where girls are taken from their families for training after they manifest their powers, trades luxury for freedom and bodily autonomy. Fortunately for them, a rare genetic mutation found, for some reason, in the lower classes gives girls the ability to do limited and hardwon magic-magic useful for fixing royal fetuses, once implanted. In the Lone City, the royalty is so inbred that they cannot produce live births. The Jewel’s premise is, as promised, along the lines of The Handmaid’s Tale. Obviously, there’s very good marketing sense to invite comparisons to The Hunger Games, but I have mixed feelings about the young adult juggernaut narrative.īut in this case, I’m fine with it, because if it gets more teens reading The Jewel, the better.

The Selection itself was marketed as a riff on The Hunger Games. It just ties in so neatly to the young adult juggernaut narrative, from Harry Potter to Twilight to The Hunger Games to Divergent to the current interregnum. It’s not the latter title, as everybody should read A Handmaid’s Tale, especially teenage girls, but the former. (It is one hundred percent worth it.) But seeing The Jewel marketed as The Selection meets A Handmaid’s Tale gave me pause. I myself constantly convince people to watch Plunkett and Macleane by describing it as “ A Knight’s Tale Gothy, romantic older sister,” only for them to rage about how hard it is to get ahold of. I enjoy a good referential pitch as much as anyone else.

The jewel amy ewing series