Ratings95
Average rating3.4
Not a genre I usually read but thoroughly enjoyed this page turner.
An intriguing tale of King Midas and his favoured Auren.
Ends on a cliffhanger though.
A lot of people have been talking about the series lately and I finally decided to give it a try. I'm always super hesitant to read hyped books because they almost never live up to the hype. I kind of feel that way with this even though I am intrigued and plan to continue.
For me, this was very much a first book that was rocky and trying to figure out its place in the world. I think there were a lot of underdeveloped ideas and storylines that didn't quite work for me. Not to mention the amount of threatened abuse Auren had to deal with. I think what bothered me the most about it is how Auren seems to be strong and want to stick up for others but also kind of does nothing for herself until the last minute. We got hints about how she grew up but I honestly don't get how she ended up where she is in this book without having thicker skin and the ability to stand up for herself. She just kind of lets the threats and abuse happen to her even though we know she came from a hard life before.
For me, it was the last 50% of this book where the actual story started to come into play and I kind of understood what the point was. I think we could have skipped a lot of the introduction in this book and spent more time on the events of the 2nd half so they were not as rushed. I think we wasted a lot of time with Auren in her cage feeling sorry for herself when we could have been learning more about the world and more about her past. I still feel like we know nothing about her other than a few hints she gave to Sail.
The ending was a curveball with a reveal that just adds to my point earlier about this being a rocky book trying to figure out what it was. I think the ending is when the author started to figure out where she wanted to take these characters and what world they were living in. I'm hoping the next books are more concrete in terms of their direction. I will be continuing for now because everyone says the next book is better, but I will say the first half of this book was super dense and hard to get through.
2.5 ⭐️'s
The start to this book was rough. It almost deterred me from reading the rest but I'm kinda glad I trudged through. It wasn't an amazing book by any means but it was somewhat enjoyable. I am left with a lot of questions and confusion but for a fantasy book this was a pretty short read so maybe the rest of the series will answer those questions? That's if I decide to continue. I have a lot of issues with Midas and Auren's relationship, giving Tampon from the ACOTR series but so much worse, I really hope we are supposed to hate Midas in the end. I also found Auren absolutely awful for so much of this book she only gets slightly less terrible towards the end. There's a few other gripes but it's giving knock off Sarah J. Maas but worse.
I've been putting off reading this book. Don't know why, I really enjoyed it.
The first chapter starts with a literal orgy, so if you don't want to read something like that, skip this book.
I don't know why, but I feel like Rissa is up to more. She isn't as innocent as she appears. Also, my guess right now is that Midas is working with that fae dude to get Auren back. Or she is going to bang the hell out of fae dude. No idea yet.
J'ai téléchargé l'extrait (le premier chapitre) par curiosité. Pour voir si le style d'écriture me convenait.
J'ai été emporté dans l'histoire dès les premières pages, du coup à la fin du premier chapitre, il me fallait la suite !
Je l'ai acheté et dévoré. À 22 h il était terminé.
Pourtant dès la première page, ça commence par une orgie. Je me suis dit “ Oh boy, encore un roman ou à part du c** il n'y a rien”. J'avais tort.
Points positifs :
- L'héroine est attachante et cohérente dans ses actions du début à la fin
- Le worldbuilding est progressif, on ne vous balance pas pleins d'info dès les 50 premières pages
- La plume est agréable et fluide
- Le récit est original, je n'en dirais pas plus pour ne pas spoiler
Point négatif :
- 1er tome un peu court et qui termine sur un cliffhanger.
3.5 Stars
Lots of world building and getting to know Auren. I can't wait to read the next one.
Gild is book 1 in the Plated Prisoner Series by Raven Kennedy. It is wonderful and horrifying all at the same time. Wonderful because the world building and character development was great. Horrifying because Auren literally lives in a cage. The more I read, the more horrified I became for Auren, and I think that is part of what makes this a great book.
I really felt the despair and hopelessness coming off Auren in waves throughout her time in the cage. It was such a good depiction of emotional abuse and an extremely controlling relationship. I mean, the book starts off with Auren being made to watch Midas have an orgy with his royal saddles (another term for harem)!! What a fucked up guy he is, and I love it so much.
Midas was written so well, another golden man who appears wonderful but is actually horrible inside. Hidden behind his golden persona lies an absolutely wretched man, thriving off manipulating and controlling a woman for his gain and her capture (aka protection in the book).
I mean her nickname is his favored, his precious. He has people travel from far and wide to look at her and he parades her in front of them like a prized trophy.. like holy shit I am offended for her. Poor Auren doesn’t even know how bad this is, she has been manipulated so much.
My favorite characters in Gild are Digby and Sail, hands down. I love them so much! I really loved the interactions between Auren and each of them as the book went on, it was so sweet.
Gild has a lot of misogynistic, horrible, disgusting men, and while it was awful to read about what they said and did, I think it added another layer to the book that made it better. The differences between the awful men and the good men were starkly obvious. While I wish no person ever had to endure SA of any kind, I think Auren’s fear of it upped the tension in the book and made me more invested. I did not want that to happen to her or any of the characters, and when they were in danger of it I could not put the book down.
Finally, towards the end we meet the Fourth Kingdom’s army, along with Rip – the commander. Can’t wait to read more of him….
Overall, Gild by Raven Kennedy was a great start to the Plated Prisoner series, and I am diving straight into the next one. I would recommend this book for sure!
Originally posted at woarr.com.
4.5 stars
So I wasn't expecting most of the last like, 20% of the book or more! Very surprising. I was not expecting this book to have so much heart, but it did. Loved it.
It is a little in your face with the on-the-page SA and R. But it adds to the story mostly, so I'm not against it- it isn't gratuitous I don't think.
There is a lot of misogyny to unpack, so be prepared for these TWs and you'll enjoy it, I am sure!
I finished this book in about two days; the hold it had on me immense that I could not stop thinking about it.
To get it out of the way, was this the most spectacular writing? No, but that's not what I wanted or needed. It was easy to read, and kept me sucked into the final page. I saw some complaints that the middle was not good and braced myself for it, but I loved the whole of it.
♤
Spoiler-Free Review:
This was a reread for me, and I honestly forgot how much I liked this book! The ending had me wanting to jump into Glint right away! This series is a King Midas retelling with a twist. The story follows Auren who is the kings favored concubine and her journey to realizing her true value. This book is a bit slow, but I always expect that in first book of fantasy series. By the end of this book, I was craving more. I reread this book to prepare for the upcoming release of Glow, book 4 in this series. I can't wait to move onto Glint and Gleam! I did this reread with the audiobook, and the narration was kind of difficult for me. It was very slow and just her cadence of speech was off, but once I upped the speed to 2x it was tolerable and less noticeable. This is an adult fantasy, 18+ for language, sexual content, and themes. Check trigger warning because this book definitely touches on some difficult themes.
Читайте на свій страх і ризик. Просто маса образ в сторону жінок. Ба більше “образа” - занадто м'яке слово, щоб описати, що тут відбувається.
This book was okay. It picked up its pace, sort of. It was a lot of exposition. And the ribbons make me very uncomfortable.
Otro audiolibro que me escucho, a ver cuanto puedo escuchar hasta que se me acaben los 30 días libres de Podimo. Básicamente me lo he escuchado pq lo tenía pendiente y estaba disponible en Podimo, pero cuando lo empecé estuve a nada de dejarlo, pensé: ¿qué coño estoy escuchando? Pero dije bueno, seguro que mejora, osea lo veía recomendado en muchos videos, no puede gustarle a tanta gente y ser tan malo. Spoiler: no mejoró. Lo malo es que aunque no me haya gustado me ha dejado con el gusanillo de si mejorará en los siguientes y qué piensa hacer la autora JAJAJSJA. Y como me viene bien el formato audiolibro porque trabajando en otras cosas mientras lo escucho creo que me escucharé el siguiente.
I don't even know what to say. Yes I do lmao.
When I first started Gild, I was horrified not only by the absurd amount of graphic on-page sexual violence and overwhelming misogyny from every single male character, but also by the main character's Stockholm syndrome, stupidity, and whininess. Auren, who I unfortunately have to share 83% of my first name with, is one of the worst main characters I've ever had to read about. Actually, none of the characters were enjoyable. None of the plot, if you could go as far as to say that this book even had a plot, was enjoyable. This read like a glorified, drawn-out prequel or prologue, with no substance except to set up the upcoming novels. I'm trying to think of a redeemable quality this book has... it was a fast read?
I DNF'ed this book twice while reading it, first at the 10% mark and again at the 50% mark. I picked it up again twice in the hopes that the hype was real and that it would get better by the end— spoiler: it doesn't. This is a boring, shitty, awful, poorly-written book. By the 60% mark, I had lost any hope for this book and I was basically just skimming and hate-reading. Though fortunately for me, things started picking up with the pirates and the Fourth Kingdom plot— though the misogyny and sexual violence was still uncomfortably rampant.
When I finished this, out of pure wonder and curiosity for what the fuck I just read, I went down a Goodreads-TikTok-Reddit rabbit hole only to see that a lot of other people agree with me and think that this book is absolute shit. And while it feels nice to be validated in my feelings, these people have also unanimously agreed that the second, third, and so-on books get better and better and that it's worth it to push through this pile of utter garbage. So, against my better judgment and because I just can't help but be morbidly intrigued, I will be reading the next book, and maybe the book after that. At minimum it will be a hate-read to fuel my stress into. I'm done.
TL;DR: It is SO bad I wanna give it a zero, but that's not possible so I give it a one.
Edit: raising my rating a little because hindsight is an interesting thing. still the worst one in the series tho.
When I first picked up this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. Let me tell you, I was pleasantly surprised and fell in love with it. The storyline, great. The characters, relatable and enticing, I especially have my eye on Commander Rip.Thankfully I bought the second book of the series “Glint” so I can continue reading. I definitely recommend this book to be added to your TBR.4.5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I don’t know how I feel about Gild. The author writes in a unique and interesting style, and the fantasy world they create, along with the magic system, is definitely one of a kind. However, that world is absolutely drenched in some of the most disgusting representations of patriarchy I’ve ever seen. Luckily, it’s not romanticized, otherwise I would have DNF’d the series immediately.
It does end on an intriguing cliffhanger, but I’m still not seeing what makes this book so addicting or enthralling to justify the amount of hype it’s received, let alone warrant five more books. While it has some great aspects, I’m not entirely sold on the overall appeal yet.
Gild was quite a ride and I was stranded, left without a saddle. While the description on Amazon does include a trigger warning for the monstrous things that are present in this story, the book (Kindle Edition) does not. I was unfortunate enough to not have seen the trigger warning when buying the book as it's hidden at the very end of the blur. Whoops!
For what it's worth Gild treats the subject matter well. It is not glamorizing sexual assault, it's very clearly written from a perspective of someone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The descriptors use could be less vulgar but that's more of a personal preference.
The problem of Gild is that it is an amazing story that has been butchered, cut apart, and strung up to look like erotica. All the fantasy aspects are for all intents and purposes useless. Removing all of the ‘spicy' elements would change nothing.
“The myth of King Midas reimagined.”
everything
Gild