THIS COVER. Oh, I swooned over this cover. But the inside? Eh. 
 First, I must say that the writing flowed beautifully and I really did enjoy Ewing's style; however, the story itself...not so much. Granted, suspension of disbelief is required for this read and that I had no problem with but the story had a few hitches: 
 Shaky World Building 
 So, the society is divided into circles based on the type of work prominent in that area (The Farm..farmers, The Bank...merchants, The Marsh...be poor? The Jewel..royals). Okay, cool. But sorry Royals, for some unknown reason none of you can have babies that aren't highly deformed or sick. BUT GUESS WHAT? A highly trained group of scientists that still cannot understand why your reproduction systems do not work (view spoiler)[yeah...okay (hide spoiler)] have discovered many of the girls from the Marsh ONLYTHEMARSHOKAY have powers (magic? I do not know.) that allow them to change the colors of objects and grow things and... other things? And okay, magical abilities I can work with but give me something people...how do they work? What are they? How is something like that discovered if these girls have to be trained to use them? 
 Aaaanyways the girls from the Marsh are tested and if they test positive for these super important "skills" they are pulled from their families and put in a home/boarding school where they learn to use their abilities. Then, they are sold at an auction to the highest bidding royal to be their slave I mean surrogate. 
 Interesting but it just didn't feel well thought out. It was more like these abilities were created out of convenience to the story. It felt like ideas were slapped on a paper and it was just hard for me to get past that. 
 Stop trying to Hunger Games me. 
 Not to be unfair, but please do not give me your Cinna-ripoffIMEANLUCIEN. Oh, Lucien. Lucien gives our main gal, Violet, her dazzling makeover for the auction. And during this time, we are led to believe that Lucien isn't very supportive of this shindig. YEAHYEAHOKAY,LUCIEN. Sorry, but this whole scene was just very reminiscent of Katniss and Cinna's moments together. Bleh. 
 Not to mention the circles. Oh, you mean districts? How about the Royals? YOU MEAN THE CAPITOL? Maybe I'm being harsh but I got the vibe that The Hunger Games was used as a model and then random crap was thrown in to make it seem different. 
 Despite my problems with the story, it was still a fairly entertaining read. As I said, the writing was beautiful and the flow was perfect. I didn't even have a problem with the case of insta-love this book seems to suffer from; the romance seems authentic to the situation. AND THE ENDING? Yes, please. Hopefully, the rest of the series answers some lingering questions and picks up the action a little more. 
 Overall, The Jewel was an enjoyable read.