I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Haunted by memories, Clara couldn't make heads or tails of them. The only thing was her mom's jade necklace. She feels it holds the key to unlocking her past. Then Clara is pushed into a world filled with magic. Clara must unlock her secrets before its too late! Thanks #Netgalley and #Booksgosocial for the eARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are mine.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

It was an interesting premise and the plot was engaging. However, any enjoyment I have is ruined by the unnecessary fatphobia in this book. It's 2025. There should be absolutely no excuse for this.

Unfortunately I DNF'd this book. I found the main character's fatphobia hard to get past. It felt misplaced and unnecessary and resulted in an unpleasant read despite Jad Phillip's otherwise captivating story telling.

The Jade Necklace is a fantasy story about a girl with powers and a gargoyle looking for her. The plot has some turns, but it felt a bit off to me—sometimes slow or messy. I liked the magic and their connection, though, and it kept me interested enough. It’s decent if you’re into fantasy, even if it didn’t totally win me over.

Creative and dark - gargoyles, witches, mage, and at the heart, obsession. Secrets and greed for power clash, while unrequited love batters hearts that start to break and a past that won't let go. Part of the story ends, and another begins ... a small cliff

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the Arc!

The cover and the premise of the book originally drew me in. At first, I felt it started out interesting, the life of a gargoyle and how he hunts a night was a bit gruesome in detail, but was still very interesting, as it had a strong beginning to let us know that Robin would be an imperfect character that could later on tackle his flaws and develop as a character. What ended up happening was that it went quickly to spiraling into a more adult route and that's where things became to follow. The perspective went to Clara who seemed hyper focused on her friend group and without a reason as to why aside from them all being friends. But it also didn't seem that way considering how all of them seemed all judgmental with one another, even fatphobic at times. I understand the authors intentions were to not be so light on the subject for 'Western audience', but i also believe that is also deterring away a lot of potential readers that might have been interested in reading the novel. The backstory of the main lead was also confusing, as is was plastered mid book that became difficult at times to understand who the characters in the backstory were, and if there were even relevant to the 'present' timeline of events, or if we would ever see them again.

Overall, the premise was interesting, but there is still many things that need to be formatted, clarified and elaborated on.

OK, I admit this book is not targeted to me, a straight white man in his 40s, but it sounded intriguing enough when it popped up on Netgalley (plus I quite liked the cover of the sequel). This book is very immature YA fiction. That being said, it should still be well written and have a decent story with engaging characters. This book has none of that. The writing is appalling, with a far-too-serious tone (everything is "to his very core" or "every fibre of his being") and there are so many passages of thick exposition it really was a chore. Thankfully the book is fairly short so I could chip away at it and not feel bogged down.
Most of the story follows two main characters - "Badr", possibly the last remaining gargoyle (basically a vampire but one that turns to stone in the daylight, but of course he doesn't because of plot) who eats people and is a sex pest, but one with rock hard abs of course. He frequently morphs into "his bestial self" (an ugly giant bat basically) and we are repeatedly reminded how beastly he is, but wait ... he isn't all that bad deep down. He happens upon a beautiful woman and becomes embroiled in her world of ... I dunno mages or something I think. And despite being over 1000 years old, of course he refers to people as douchebags.
We then have Clara, supposedly a college student but with the emotions of a 13 year old as she is obsessed with her friend who has a toxic relationship, and rock hard abs, She vaguely knows she grew up in Geneva and someone rescued her from someone bad and now she's in Beirut - though her life is a painfully stereotypical American college life that I kept forgetting that. Despite us having been introduced to her and her friends with descriptions of their eye colours for some reason, there was nothing to give me any insight into a young person's life in Lebanon, unless it really is like an episode of Dawson's Creek. Anyway, she also starts to discover that she's magic or something (the phrase "astral project" is used a lot so she can spy on people to move the plot along), but as always with YA books written by a man, she doesn't really get directly involved in any conflict despite her training.
The plot centres around the beastly Badr gradually telling us about his upbringing in long rambling flashbacks (badly written ones where we're not sure when they ended) but then we just get massive info-dumps to move it along, and he starts to soften. And Clara just repeatedly angsts about he friend and why doesn't he love me. And that's about it.
The author mentioned in the preface that they wanted a book that showed his background rather than American/European ones. Well if he did that, then Lebanon is like a badly dated version of America in the 90s, with no apparent movement in attitudes towards homosexuality or obesity, or just non-typical beauty. The only characters that show anything interesting are pushed into the background and told to shut up.
I got an advance copy from Netgalley and this is the honest review they wanted in exchange. I shan't be reading the sequel.

So sad to see this premise not being executed as it deserve. The pacing is off, the characters are two dimensional and the writing is sadly not that great.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for giving me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Did not read for not downloading the ARC before the archive date. Which breaks my heart because I was incredibly excited to read this book. Nevertheless, here's a 5 star rating for compensation. I do apologise for the inconvenience and the unprofessionalism; best of luck.

I liked the writing style. It drew me in. The storyline is really unique and I was entertained. I enjoyed this and would recommend it! Special Thank You to Jad Phillip, BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

No me gustó.

Intento pensar en algo positivo que decir, pero no se me ocurre. Fue como eso trabajos que te dejan en equipo y todos se reparten lo que harán y final se junta, pero en el resultado es muy obvio que diferentes personas lo hicieron. Pues así me sentí no que lo hiciera otra persona, sino que tenía dos ideas para libros diferentes y al final decidió juntarlos y esperar que resultara en algo bueno.

The book's premise sounded quite interesting, but sadly the book didn't live up to the premise.

The writing was all over the place, it kept jumping around so much my head was starting to spin. The back and forth without knowing what was happening made the plot feel fragmented and incomplete. They style is not fluent and it truly was a struggle to get to the end.

The fight scenes were boring, the character development wasn't there and I truly didn't feel anything for the characters. The Author also included many fatphobic, sexist, and homophobic statements within the first chapters which were unnecessary to the story and gave me just made me feel less interested in the writing.

I actually put this book down and contemplated not finishing it but I couldn't do since it was an advance copy. Unless changes are made to the story format I for one won't continue on with the story. Mostly because I simply don't care enough about any of the characters to want to know what happens.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book. Unfortunately the actually story failed to live up to the initial promise

Trama/Plot 1
Personaggi/Characters 1
Stile/Style 0.5

I chose this book for the cover, which has its own charm, and for the plot, which seemed promising... instead it was a flop... almost 250 pages of nothing, the plot is far too fragmented, the style is not at all fluent (it was a struggle to get to the end), I did not like the characters at all and, in many cases, you can notice a basic misogyny and fatphobia that border on rudeness. One star is even given away.
***
Ho scelto questo libro per la copertina, che ha un suo fascino, e per la trama, che sembrava promettente...invece è stato un buco nell'acqua...quasi 250 pagine di nulla, la trama è fin troppo frammentata, lo stile non è affatto scorrevole (è stata una fatica arrivare in fondo), i personaggi non mi sono piaciuti per niente e, in molti casi, si nota una misoginia e una grassofobia di fondo che arrivano a sfiorare la maleducazione. Una stella è addirittura regalata.

I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations. The pacing was a mess, and I found myself drifting off multiple times. The plot felt unfocused, with too many irrelevant side stories that didn’t add anything meaningful to the narrative. The character development was weak, and I never felt fully connected to anyone, least of all the protagonist.

Clara's obsession with Erik was uncomfortable to read. Her fixation on him felt unhealthy and toxic, bordering on stalking. The way she endlessly pined for someone who clearly wasn’t interested made her seem immature and frustrating. There was little growth, and by the time I gave up, I couldn’t bring myself to care about her journey.

The constant fat-shaming was also a huge turn-off. The book overemphasized characters' physical appearances, using cruel language and making it feel like their worth was defined by their looks. It was repetitive and unneeded, leaving me with an overall sense of discomfort. That's why I'm giving it 1 aka 0 ⭐.

This was a great start to the Chosen and the Cursed series, it had that feel that I was looking for from the description. The world was wonderfully done and worked well with the characters in this world. I was invested in what was happening with this story and enjoyed the overall feel of this. Jad Phillip has a strong writing style and can't wait for more.

I am grateful for this copy I was given for an honest review, but I´m afraid I put it down as soon as I realized that it was a lot different than what I expected. Primarily because the book soon turned out to be 'erotic' in nature, with descriptions of characters and body parts in a way where I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be serious or comedic. I think it would be more helpful to find the right audience for these kinds of books if the back-description were more honest.

Anyway, I decided I still wanted to give it a shot, so I skipped ahead a few chapters, but I still found the language odd and choppy, as if it was aimed at an audience with a lacking vocabulary and reading comprehension. I am currently reading a middle-grade fantasy novel that has a much more nuanced language and respect for its reader's understanding of what is going on. I am not a native English speaker so I sometimes have to look up words while I'm reading in English, but if someone recommended this book to me because of it, I would be offended. How a book is written is just, if not more, important than the actual story, as several times there is a promising concept butchered by bad writing. I want to immerse myself in the story, not flinch back to reality every time something or someone is described/written in an off-putting way.

Thank you for reading this review, and anyone is welcome to agree or disagree. Reading is a personal experience, and this particular experience just wasn't for me.

I loved the plot line of this story it was well written and hard to put down. I would defied reccomend others read it.

This was almost a DNF multiple times, but I kept hoping that it would get better. The description of the book sounded amazing and it had huge potential, but sadly, it didn't deliver on that potential for me. There were a lot of tangents in this book that completely took me out of the story and made the whole thing feel very disjointed. Many of the descriptions of the characters were also oddly written and unnecessarily lengthy for how minor of a character they were. While all of the relationships in this book were extremely unhealthy, Clara's obsession over Erik felt toxic and how a woman "should" feel about a man in her life. She's a grown adult going to university, yet it's shocking that he and his girlfriend are having sex? Her constant whining about him not loving her and her stalking tendencies made me feel very uncomfortable. Yes, he might have hinted that he wanted more, but that doesn't automatically mean that you need to obsess over a man for years and think that he'll just come to the realization that he loves you out of the blue. Clara felt extremely immature, and she only potentially changed the last few pages of the book.

The obsession with perceived beauty and fat shaming was off the charts and made me feel EXTREMELY uncomfortable. "fat was an understatement," "her features weren't so friendly on the eyes," "she's too hot to die," etc. I might not have been so uncomfortable if it had only been once or twice, but it was THROUGHOUT the book. It very much made me feel like a female's sexual worth was being "mansplained," and it ensured that I won't be continuing with this series.

Thank you, NetGalley, the publisher and author, for providing a free copy of <i>The Jade Necklace</i> in exchange for an honest review.