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kaimin's review
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Violence, and Pedophilia
machobgood's review against another edition
challenging
1.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Rape, and Pedophilia
katkatz's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This series gets better as you go but PLEASE check the content warnings and avoid if necessary! These triggers are FAST and FURIOUS, people, so proceed with caution.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Rape, Child death, Child abuse, Animal death, Torture, Sexual violence, Incest, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, and Slavery
Moderate: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
eng2's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Child abuse, Violence, and Sexual content
faerie123's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Sexism, and Rape
Moderate: Violence
mazzreads86's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It's tough to review this book, I have read the entire Black Jewels series and so my opinion of this first book is coloured by my thoughts on the entire series.
There is definitely some major content warnings that readers need to be aware of ahead of time, and I think that they are somewhat reflective of the time it was written (late 90's) - not to say that rape, sexual assualt, and paedophilia weren't a big deal at the time, but that writers weren't as aware of how problematic including those topics in their books could be.
I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone under 18 to read, and would make sure to warn anyone that there are some quite graphic descriptions included, I definitely skip over those sections when I reread.
Getting past all that, the basic story is really interesting and the characters are wonderful, especially as you move in to the next 2 books and beyond (one of my favourite characters is introduced in book 2 - kiss kiss!). I think that Jaenelle & Daemon's relationship is actually the least interesting/likeable, and is somewhat problematic, but the rest are fantastic.
There is definitely some major content warnings that readers need to be aware of ahead of time, and I think that they are somewhat reflective of the time it was written (late 90's) - not to say that rape, sexual assualt, and paedophilia weren't a big deal at the time, but that writers weren't as aware of how problematic including those topics in their books could be.
I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone under 18 to read, and would make sure to warn anyone that there are some quite graphic descriptions included, I definitely skip over those sections when I reread.
Getting past all that, the basic story is really interesting and the characters are wonderful, especially as you move in to the next 2 books and beyond (one of my favourite characters is introduced in book 2 - kiss kiss!). I think that Jaenelle & Daemon's relationship is actually the least interesting/likeable, and is somewhat problematic, but the rest are fantastic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Torture, Sexual violence, Rape, Violence, Slavery, Pedophilia, and Child abuse
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Suicide attempt, and Adult/minor relationship
kbookish's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Child abuse, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Cannibalism, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Violence, Torture, Slavery, and Medical trauma
Minor: Body horror
lemon_'s review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
DNF @ 80%
I was intrigued by the concept of this book, but it did not live up in any respect. I really was interested in reading about a witch-based matriarchal society, but this novel failed in basically every way that matters.
1. The writing is incomprehensible. For most of this book, I had almost zero clue of what was going on, where these characters were, how long they had been there, what the power structure in this world is, who has what powers and why, etc. The world building is impossible to grasp with any sort of certainty. Witches can die, but they aren't really dead-dead, they just take on a different form of themselves? They can be demon-dead, but that is never really explained.
2. This world is supposed to be a matriarchal society, where female witches are at the heart of all magic and males are born with, essentially, an innate desire to serve worthy females. Instead, we got a society where all magically-gifted men have been enslaved into sexual slavery (which includes constant rapings and physical/psychological torture), even going so far as to be castrated for the female witch's entertainment. This isn't a society based around women, it's a society based around sexual sadism. It's very unclear to me why, if this matriachal society was relatively peaceful before, why would the witches decide to enslave the men? The men were already subservient and it's inherent in their natures to want to serve the women? there's literally no reason to enslave them?? It felt like a cheap writing technique the author used to justify why the women witches are the bad guys in this matriarchal society.
3. Even though the text explicitly states that women are at the heart of magic, every single woman in this story is weaker than the main male characters (very cleverly (/s) named Saetan, Daemon, and Lucivar) except for the child chosen-one Witch, Jaenelle.
4. The magic ranking system (using stones to represent levels of power) is dumb as fuck. Every one of the main characters is gray or black (the two strongest levels out of like ~15 different gems), which skews the power levels of everyone in the story. There are only two grays and only three blacks in this world and *all* of them are named characters that participate in the story. Not a single page goes by without one of these supposedly very rare people popping up on page.
5. The characterization is just awful. All three of the male main characters are essentially indistinguishable from one another in terms of personality. Aside from being told that Daemon is the cold one, and Lucivar is like summer, and Saetan is old and wise, they all have basically the exact same personality and characterization.
6. I was interested in the idea of an all-powerful FMC having to learn how to control her uncontrollable power from a young age, but Jaenelle doesn't get any POV chapters in this book (her story is told completely from the mens' perspectives) and she basically can do anything she wants whenever she wants.
7. This book has the harshest undertones of pedophilia that I've read in any fiction book. It's not subtle at all. And it's not some bad guy being a pedophile; it's literally most of the characters in the book, including the main male characters we are supposed to be rooting for, that straight up have pedophilia. Daemon's cousin is a proud child rapist who takes pleasure in "breaking" his victims and justifying it because the women of this world are such horrible slave masters. Daemon straight up is creeping on Jaenelle for the last half of this book. He has sexual thoughts about her (keep in mind, she starts this book at like age 6 and ends it at age 12!!!) and repeatedly thinks about how he will have her in his bed as soon as she's "old enough". He justifies that this is okay because he physically cannot get hard (due to his enslavement cock ring, the obedience ring), therefore he's not a pedophile. Yet the book hints at him getting hard when he brushes by Jaenelle and they have skin contact, or when he lifts her to sit in his lap! It is beyond gross! And Daemon is the character with the most POV chapters, next to Saetan, so we spend a ton of time in his head with his gross pedophile thoughts.
I just can't finish this book. I wanted a dark, creepy, matriarchal witch society and I did not get that at all. Instead I got a 1500 year old pedophile lusting after a 12 year old girl, meandering prose, incomprehensible worldbuilding, a plot that moves at a snail's pace, and a violent slave society masquerading as a matriarchy.
I was intrigued by the concept of this book, but it did not live up in any respect. I really was interested in reading about a witch-based matriarchal society, but this novel failed in basically every way that matters.
1. The writing is incomprehensible. For most of this book, I had almost zero clue of what was going on, where these characters were, how long they had been there, what the power structure in this world is, who has what powers and why, etc. The world building is impossible to grasp with any sort of certainty. Witches can die, but they aren't really dead-dead, they just take on a different form of themselves? They can be demon-dead, but that is never really explained.
2. This world is supposed to be a matriarchal society, where female witches are at the heart of all magic and males are born with, essentially, an innate desire to serve worthy females. Instead, we got a society where all magically-gifted men have been enslaved into sexual slavery (which includes constant rapings and physical/psychological torture), even going so far as to be castrated for the female witch's entertainment. This isn't a society based around women, it's a society based around sexual sadism. It's very unclear to me why, if this matriachal society was relatively peaceful before, why would the witches decide to enslave the men? The men were already subservient and it's inherent in their natures to want to serve the women? there's literally no reason to enslave them?? It felt like a cheap writing technique the author used to justify why the women witches are the bad guys in this matriarchal society.
3. Even though the text explicitly states that women are at the heart of magic, every single woman in this story is weaker than the main male characters (very cleverly (/s) named Saetan, Daemon, and Lucivar) except for the child chosen-one Witch, Jaenelle.
4. The magic ranking system (using stones to represent levels of power) is dumb as fuck. Every one of the main characters is gray or black (the two strongest levels out of like ~15 different gems), which skews the power levels of everyone in the story. There are only two grays and only three blacks in this world and *all* of them are named characters that participate in the story. Not a single page goes by without one of these supposedly very rare people popping up on page.
5. The characterization is just awful. All three of the male main characters are essentially indistinguishable from one another in terms of personality. Aside from being told that Daemon is the cold one, and Lucivar is like summer, and Saetan is old and wise, they all have basically the exact same personality and characterization.
6. I was interested in the idea of an all-powerful FMC having to learn how to control her uncontrollable power from a young age, but Jaenelle doesn't get any POV chapters in this book (her story is told completely from the mens' perspectives) and she basically can do anything she wants whenever she wants.
7. This book has the harshest undertones of pedophilia that I've read in any fiction book. It's not subtle at all. And it's not some bad guy being a pedophile; it's literally most of the characters in the book, including the main male characters we are supposed to be rooting for, that straight up have pedophilia. Daemon's cousin is a proud child rapist who takes pleasure in "breaking" his victims and justifying it because the women of this world are such horrible slave masters. Daemon straight up is creeping on Jaenelle for the last half of this book. He has sexual thoughts about her (keep in mind, she starts this book at like age 6 and ends it at age 12!!!) and repeatedly thinks about how he will have her in his bed as soon as she's "old enough". He justifies that this is okay because he physically cannot get hard (due to his enslavement cock ring, the obedience ring), therefore he's not a pedophile. Yet the book hints at him getting hard when he brushes by Jaenelle and they have skin contact, or when he lifts her to sit in his lap! It is beyond gross! And Daemon is the character with the most POV chapters, next to Saetan, so we spend a ton of time in his head with his gross pedophile thoughts.
I just can't finish this book. I wanted a dark, creepy, matriarchal witch society and I did not get that at all. Instead I got a 1500 year old pedophile lusting after a 12 year old girl, meandering prose, incomprehensible worldbuilding, a plot that moves at a snail's pace, and a violent slave society masquerading as a matriarchy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and Rape
mlcutter's review
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I have so much to say about this book. Some spoilers.
The good:
It's well written
The world building is phenomenal
The characters are fleshed out, even the evil ones
It is unique
The bad:
There are sooo many characters!
A child is badly abused and there is too much detail
There are sex slaves
Adults are badly abused and there is too much detail
There are so many just plain evil characters, it's hard to imagine anyone that awful and you wind up hoping that everyone is murdered in awful ways because they're so terrible.
The black jewel trilogy, which is now a whole series of books written by Anne Bishop, are HARD. TO. READ. These are not light, they're not easy, there is no comic relief. They're dark. DARK, with a capital D. The people who have magic are born to a jewel. Depending on a color, they can be powerful. Black jewel holders are the most powerful. The queens are powerful and terrible. They're jealous, petty, petulant, conniving, and willing to do whatever they have to do to hold power. There is a promise of a queen that will rule well, she will fix what is wrong. She is a child of 12 in this book. She is innocent and naive but the most powerful ever to be born. Everyone wants to either protect her or kill her or break her so she is unable to use her power. Because no one understands her, it is assumed she is unwell.
There is some fascinating imagery that makes me wonder if Anne Bishop struggles with mental illness. There are the "twisted lands" which we come to know as a place where the mind has been broken. She describes the mind as a chalice and once its broken, it has to be repaired before the person is whole again, but it is fragile.
I don't think abuse has to be spelled out. It's too hard to read. I think it was done better in the Shaye Archer series by Jana DeLeon. you get enough glimpses that you know Shaye has suffered, but you don't get the gory details.
All in all, I want to never read this book again. not sure I will continue the trilogy. I will stick to my favorite Bishop books The Others series, which is a unique take on shapeshifters and one of my favorite series ever.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cannibalism, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Incest, Murder, Sexual harassment, Body horror, Bullying, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Torture, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Slavery, and Rape