“Surrogates are not just silly girls, to be bought and sold and treated like pets or furniture. We are a force to be reckoned with.”
☆☆☆☆
Violet is on the run. After the Duchess of the Lake catches Violet with Ash, the hired companion at the Palace of the Lake, Violet has no choice but to escape the Jewel or face certain death. So along with Ash and her best friend, Raven, Violet runs away from her unbearable life of servitude.
But no one said leaving the Jewel would be easy. As they make their way through the circles of the Lone City, Regimentals track their every move, and the trio barely manages to make it out unscathed and into the safe haven they were promised—a mysterious house in the Farm.
But there’s a rebellion brewing, and Violet has found herself in the middle of it. Alongside a new ally, Violet discovers her Auguries are much more powerful than she ever imagined. But is she strong enough to rise up against the Jewel and everything she has ever known?
The White Rose is a raw, captivating sequel to The Jewel that fans won’t be able to put down until the final shocking moments.
Oh, how I enjoyed this book!! Remember how in my review for the first book of this series one of my biggest complaints was that I felt like there were too many similarities and comparisons to other series? And how it took away from my overall enjoyment? That is not the case here. With this wonderful sequel, I can finally see that this series is its own thing and I’m no longer stuck in my head making comparisons to other works. I love where the story is going and how we’re starting to see who the key players are in all of this. Honestly all I can think about right now is how much I enjoyed The White Rose. There are a few things about this book that really stood out for me and I think it’s because of those things that I can’t help but think positive, happy thoughts about this book. I’ll stop being vague now and start with the specifics.
Because this is a second book in a series, I cannot properly review this without revealing major spoilers so a SPOILER ALERT is now in effect.
THE GOOD- Like I mentioned above, I feel like this series really broke away from the stories I’ve been comparing them to. Usually when we reach the second book of a series, regardless of how long the series is, it tends to decrease in quality and therefore suffers from second book syndrome, as I like to call it. In my opinion, that did not happen here. The writing was just as good as it was in the first book and I loved seeing an extension to the world building, like seeing more parts of the Bank and the Smoke which we didn’t really get before. But we also got more of a history to The Lone City and the island it used to be and I LOVED it. I think because I’m a history nerd it’s why I loved that part of the book but it was one of those kind of histories that I could see happening. It’s a plausible history, I guess. But I’m just glad that we know so much more about this world and so many things make sense now. I also liked how the pacing of this book really picked up and every moment felt like you just kept moving. There was never really a feeling of slowing down or the story dragging. I could see where this book would’ve suffered from second book syndrome but I’m quite glad it didn’t.
- My favourite thing about this book is the fact that it’s so girl positive and focuses a lot on girls helping girls. I mentioned in my previous review how I loved that Violet wasn’t the kind of protagonist that was quick to hate on other girls and that simply dominated in this book. First of all, she chose to help save Raven by giving her the serum meant for herself and helped to get her out of The Jewel. Then she saved Raven’s life again when she miscarried. And then later in the story when Violet realizes how to fight the royalty, she realized that the surrogates were the key and that she needed to save more girls and they needed to work together. Isn’t that fantastic??? I mean, there are so many YA series where there’s unnecessary girl hate because of a love triangle or opposite personalities but there’s none of that here. I mean, there’s also no love triangle which is also great, but I’m seriously loving how much the girls are supporting each other and I’m here for it.
- Garnet has turned out to be quite the surprise. When I first met him I immediately wrote him off because I thought he was just going to be an annoying character but he’s proven to actually be really important. I love how he kept turning up to help Violet, Ash, and Raven with their escape from The Jewel and ultimately protected them. I’m glad he’s not who you first see him as; he’s not just the drunk comic relief. I like that he’s constantly proving his worth not just to you the reader but to Violet and Lucien. I also think he has a thing for Raven and I keep hoping that something happens between them so fingers crossed! I’d actually be really heartbroken if he ends up betraying everyone, which is something I think about a lot because I’m paranoid and have trust issues, so I hope I can continue to trust Garnet because he’s great and I’m really proud of him right now.
- You know how with most YA books, especially dystopian, the protagonist is some kind of “chosen one” and being the leader of a revolution just happens to fall in their lap? Yeah that didn’t happen here and thank the Lord for that. The whole chosen one gets tiring after a while, doesn’t it? I really liked that a) Violet is not leading this revolution against the royalty and b) it’s not just about her. Obviously like most revolutions there’s more key players than just our special little chosen one but I felt like this one was definitely an entire community coming together. We have the surrogates, people from the Farm, the Smoke, and even people under the thumb of the royalty, all coming together to fight for their cause. And I’m glad that Violet realized that this revolution needs the power of the surrogates working together to accomplish their goal instead of using just her power alone. I’m sure everything I just said can be applied to other books as well, but you’ve got to admit that those books kinda made the revolution about the protagonist…..everything was about Katniss in The Hunger Games and Juliette in Shatter Me and for some idiotic reason Thomas was the real leader in The Maze Runner. But Violet isn’t like that and neither is our story here and I’m thankful for that.
- Because this is a first person narrative we only see the story through Violet’s eyes and we therefore miss out on the other side of everything. I kind of wish that I could see what went on in The Jewel and with the Duchess as all of the hoopla was going down but sadly we can’t. All we know is what Garnet or Lucien tells Violet or what they read in the papers. The book doesn’t suffer too much because of this but there’s a slight loss in not getting the full story.
- Annabelle didn’t deserve to die. She was so good and she deserved to live.
- With a fast paced plot and even more world building, this book finally has the breakout it’s been looking for and doesn’t even remotely suffer from second book syndrome. Also: look at that cover, isn’t it pretty?
Title: The White Rose (The Lone City #2)
Author: Amy Ewing
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Pages: 308 (Paperback)
Goodreads
Until next time,
What did you think of the book? Leave a comment below!
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