Gilded Cage by Vic James

I received a free e-book copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity!

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

★★★★★

Gilded Cage by Vic James is a dystopian fantasy book in Britain about Equals (upper class people with powers) and commoners without powers. These commoners aren’t even considered citizens until they go through a decade of “slavedays” where they are literally just slaves. They can choose to start their slavedays whenever they want in life, though.

Characters. So many characters. It was actually a bit difficult for me to keep up with all the characters, but that’s a flaw on my end and not the book’s. There are Abi, Luke, Daisy, and the mom and dad in one of the main families. The mom and dad are pretty much nonexistent. Daisy is this 10-year-old who ends up being a total brat in my opinion – I was not fond of her at all. Abigail had SO MUCH potential, but she didn’t live up to any of it for me. I expected her to be the relatable protagonist, but she was just… so boring… Then there was the Equals family (whose names still escape me after reading a whole book about them?). Jenner had no character to him at all, in my opinion. I guess him and Abi are a perfect match in that sense. Gavar was definitely interesting, but scary at times. Silyen wasn’t memorable to me until the end, where he really showed a dark side. He thrilled me at the end – his scenes with Luke – and I want to read a thousand more scenes with him in it.

I expected to fall in love with Abi’s scenes and grumble through Luke’s scenes, but it was exactly the opposite. Abi had no character development whatsoever and didn’t seem to have much personality at all. Luke, on the other hand, oh man. The character development is so real. His transition into Millmoor (the popular slave camp) was amazing to read, and all the different antics he and his club were up to kept me on the edge of my seat. I also love really brutal dystopian settings, and, man, Millmoor is brutal.

Abigail and Jenner’s relationship wasn’t focused on enough. When they finally got anywhere, I wasn’t invested in or knew about the relationship well enough to really feel relief and joy for the two of them. Their romance fell flat for me. I was way more excited for the action scenes with Luke or the politics with Bouda than for the romance that I was really looking forward to.

I am complaining about that a lot, but don’t let that stop you from reading this book. I'm mainly complaining because I'm slightly upset that there's no sequel I can purchase right now. This was an amazing book. The story was intriguing and the writing had me hooked. Such a good writer. The British slang, while fun at times, also got on my nerves (mainly because even my e-book dictionary was like “what the heck is this?”), but that’s sort of a personal preference. The storyline progressed pretty quickly, but it didn’t seem rushed at all. It was just enough to keep you busy but not overwhelmed. 

This amazing world was built and executed almost flawlessly. This is, seriously, a very wonderful book. James did an amazing job, and I think I’ll be reading the next book in the series (but who knows when that’ll come out T_T)!