Could This Be 'The Jewel' In The Crown (Of Dystopian YA)?

I was lucky enough, thanks to Walker Books, to have the chance to read ‘The Jewel’ by Amy Ewing. As I said a few weeks back, I am not a true buff with regards to dystopian fiction, but when I was told this had a real ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ feel to it, I was intrigued. Atwood struck gold with that novel, and I was very interested to see a YA take on the idea.
                This story of Violet, Lot 197, sold to the highest bidder in order to be used as a surrogate, was really moving in sections but also managed to maintain a constant tenseness. The sense of “oh God, what’s that horrible shadow and is it going to come back for her” was written into the very fabric of Ewing’s style. What was most impressive about this however was that I still didn’t lose the actual moments of joy that Violet did have in the novel. It’s easy in a world of seemingly never ending doom to simply extinguish any of the hope for improvement, hitting rock bottom and then simply knocking the floor in again and again. Whilst this can still be really lovely writing, it gets a little desensitising (I use Game Of Thrones deaths for my marker for this one). Even right up to climax of the novel, I still believed and prayed and, though small, the little white saint of hope stood ever-vigilant in a corner somewhere. I’m not a huge sucker for happy endings, in fact quite the opposite, but it always gives a stronger reading experience when you get a three-dimensional view of tragedy. There are quite a few seriously shocking scenes in this book (sorry to spoil, but there were servitude leashes involved) which helped to amplify this contrast even further, assisted even more by the setting. When horrid things happen in grubby towns, it isn’t really a surprising read, but in a palace of sheer decadence and whilst everyone is wearing a chiffon gown? Now that is a place that gives an already horrifying event a whole new skin of repulsiveness.
                This novel was not without its flaws. The romance subplot did feel a little shoe-horned at points, but only because there were quite a few threads they were attempting to tie up. To be fair to novel, it did manage to do this, but there were points where I felt Violet and Ash’s relationship struggled to be a story in its own right, and yet at points it seemed the entire novel’s plot was their love. However, having said this, the romance was not an unlovable twee one, and the “oh I’ve never met someone I might fancy before” vibe at least made sense as Violet had basically never seen any men that weren’t family or her make-up artist for the Auction, Lucian (who was hands down my favourite character, although it did seem a little like copying ‘The Hunger Games’ from the film clips I’ve seen.) Ash felt at least slightly developed, which is more that can be said for most characters of his kind, and, despite being a little too tragic for my liking, I was rooting for him and Violet at the end.
                Overall, I really thought this book did justice to a pretty terrifying theme, and its cliff-hanger ending left me dying for more (seriously, I have already begun fan theories in my mind). The book is released in September, and I highly recommend giving it a go. Ewing has found Atwood’s mine and found a whole new precious metal with ‘The Jewel’.

Getting into 'Trouble' By Non Pratt

I have read a fair few teenage pregnancy books in my school years. As a constant thing that you’re insensitively warned about at an all-girls school (alongside eating disorders and the devil itself, s-e-x) it was a topic covered by about a quarter of the books in the library. This is partly why I was so interested to see in what direction Non Pratt’s ‘Trouble’ would take the well-used story arc, and, I can happily say, I was not disappointed.
                One of my favourite aspects of this book is its (finally!) non-Mary-Sue protagonist. Hannah is not a perfect angel by any means or definition. She’s selfish, she’s sharp-tongued, but, what I think is the most important thing, she has had sex with more than one person. Her pregnancy is not the result of a single fall from grace (well, not directly) but her simply being sexually active and careless once, out of many times in which she has been safe and careful. She doesn’t stand as a poor spoilt virgin, a dangerous image we see far too often in teen fiction, but a real teenager. I have made this comment before: I would rather read a book with characters that sometimes drive me crazy but act like real, and often irrational, teenagers, than those who form immaculate and adult impressions of teens. Hannah lives in a world where she drinks in the park on Friday nights, smokes cigarettes, and has sex through her own agency and choice (and, in some sections, doesn’t have sex through her own agency and choice). Yet she doesn’t seem to be out-of-control reckless like a daunting Skins character, simply acting like a teenager would, experimenting with her own boundaries, and the boundaries set around her.
                The style with which Pratt writes is really a reason to read the book in itself. The multi-perspective narrative in it truly works to its strength. It is often flipping through the same conversation in Aaron and Hannah’s minds and this had a profound effect on the conversation itself, even at points making it more heart breaking. Pratt’s style of writing dialogue and choreographing events in the present gave the book one hell of a pace, one which meant I was whisked along the story with its characters, with only moments of revelation to stop me in my tracks. This, in combination with her clever characters and twist-turn plot, creates a fantastic read.
                I could still nit-pick at this book for a few things, but I would be nit-picking as a near fine art. I found Aaron’s background vey over-dramatised, partially by its mystery through most of the novel, and I was disappointed that we didn’t see more of the consequences of Hannah’s pregnancy for other members of both her and Aaron’s family (Aaron’s Dad is a teacher at that school and no one seemed to care?). However, a more blue sky thinking part of my rather split mind wonders if that was part of the idea. My comment on multi-perspective narrative in a previous review (of the book Wonder) was very positive, because it allowed the reader to get a full picture of the main character’s life, whereas I think in ‘Trouble’, we see only Hannah and Aaron’s views because that is the degree to which their problems can be expressed. Through other’s eyes, Hannah’s pregnancy is a mistake and Aaron’s crisis over his old friend is simply grief, but that is not a lens that Pratt provides us with. We are restricted in these perspectives in order to understand a more personal version of events, a version that cannot be given by anyone but Aaron and Hannah.
                I thought I may have been done with teenage pregnancy style stories, but the reason that ‘Trouble’ is so good is because it is so much more than that. It is a teenage story, involving pregnancy, but it’s much more a bildungsroman than a simple 9 month diary. With Aaron’s story working in conjunction with Hannah’s, a brilliant, three-dimensional and charming novel is created.