Gilded Cage by Vic James

3.5 lacked a connection stars!!

This book was a buddy read with my good friend Klara @ Ribbon Reviews.  She is an amazing blogger with fantastic reviews on books.  If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, you should do so immediately. You can find her review of Gilded Cage here.

Gilded Cage is not your normal dystopian, at least it wasn’t for me.  This book focuses on the “skilled” and the “non-skilled”.  Having skill makes you above the mere mortals of the world.  If you are non-skilled you must serve 10 years of your life as a slave.  You get to pick when you do  your slave years, which I thought was nice at first because I would wait until end years I guess.  However in this book you learn of situations where people don’t get to pick.  Also, if you offended an skilled person you could be sentenced to life as a slave. Of course the slaves decide to stand up to the skilled in a mini revolution.

While I really enjoyed the idea behind this book both Klara and I agreed that the character connection was lacking for us.  Maybe it was the multiple POV’s that did it for us, or the fact that it felt like we were being given a history lesson instead of how the characters actually felt. Either way I personally didn’t connect with a single character until near the very end.  I think the ending saved the whole book.  Don’t get me wrong the book was very fast paced and I did want to read it but I’m not a plot driven reader, I’m a character driven reader.

While toward the end the characters started getting really interesting I think my favorite character would have been Luke.  His character growth in this book was pretty amazing.  He went from a normal teenage life to being told by his parents that they were doing their slave time as a family.  While that was hard enough to take he thought they were all staying together and then they get separated. However that is when Luke’s little happy go lucky bubble bursts and he realizes that there is more going on than just serving your time.  I think Luke as a character has a chance to become someone with great promise.

Abi who is Luke’s sister mostly annoyed me in the beginning started to grow on me by the end.  I love her fierce devotion to her family, even to her youngest sister Daisy.  I did not like her infatuation with the Equals in the beginning.  Once the truth starts coming out I did like the fact that she started to open her eyes a little more. Along with Abi I don’t understand Daisy’s infatuation with Gavar she seems to young for that kind of infatuation.

The Jardens as a whole are super creepy family.  Everyone seems in it for themselves and doesn’t care what happens to everyone else.  I have to say  Silyen may be the scariest character I have come across in a long time.  He either has it in him to do amazing things or really horrible scary things.

All in all the ending did save it a bit for me but I really wish I would’ve had a better connection with more of the characters.  I will probably pick up book two when it comes out and hope it doesn’t have second book slump.

Thank you to Netgalley, Del Rey Books, Vic James, and thank you to Gretchen @ Chic Nerd Reads for the physical copy 😀 in lieu of my honest review.

Goodreads link here.

book blurb……

Hardcover, 368 pages

Expected publication: February 14th 2017 by Del Rey Books

Original Title Gilded Cage

ISBN 0425284158 (ISBN13: 9780425284155)

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?