The Secret Gift by Bethany Atazadeh.
The Queen's Rise Series, Book 1.
At seventeen, she’s forced to keep it secret or risk having her ability severed, stolen from her completely. Despite the danger, a part of her is desperate to embrace her power.
When Jezebel's friends discover a portal to the human world, she follows them into the strange place, unable to resist the temptation to explore her gift where no one will see.
Except someone does. Someone Jezebel thought she could trust.
His betrayal comes in whispers at first. But all too quickly, those whispers become demands. And he’ll stop at nothing—not even blackmail—to use Jezebel’s power for himself.
One dark decision leads to another, until Jezebel stands to lose something she can’t live without—either her freedom, or her innocence.
A good read. Likeable story and characters. 3*.

I havent read the main series, so i will have to add it to my TBR.
I feel very anxious for the main character, but also interested on how she chose to handle things. I would have thought she would simply threaten someone if they wanted to tell on her. At least that is what i would do. I am curious to see how she will handle and deal with everything.

DNF. Received an ARC from NetGalley for this book. I requested it because the premise sounded interesting, but I found it simplistic and uninteresting. Some reviewers though the world building was great; I really didn't. You're told everything from the main character's point of view, but there's is not much else. There's a lot of telling, and very little showing.

Description:
Jezebel's shapeshifting gift breaks every rule in Jinn.
At seventeen, she’s forced to keep it secret or risk having her ability severed, stolen from her completely. Despite the danger, a part of her is desperate to embrace her power.
When Jezebel's friends discover a portal to the human world, she follows them into the strange place, unable to resist the temptation to explore her gift where no one will see.
Except someone does. Someone Jezebel thought she could trust.
His betrayal comes in whispers at first. But all too quickly, those whispers become demands. And he’ll stop at nothing—not even blackmail—to use Jezebel’s power for himself.
One dark decision leads to another, until Jezebel stands to lose something she can’t live without—either her freedom, or her innocence.
THE SECRET GIFT is the first book in THE QUEEN'S RISE SERIES, inspired by your favorite fairy tale villains in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast.

Review:
This was my first NetGalley ARC and the book started out strong and kept me really engaged. I felt like the characters were fleshed out enough to give you a sense of who they were without going overboard. I was really along for the ride about 60% of the way through the story and then I just felt Jezebel/Bel’s reactions to things really escalated. I understood her feelings but her reactions not so much. The more she came into/comfortable with her power the more corrupted it seemed she became. Which I am all for, however, it left the story feeling incomplete and unbalanced when everything she did was left unchecked. It was as if she had no remorse or consequence for her actions, only reward. I get that it was inspired by the villains from our favorite fairytales, and I by no means need a happy ending, it just made the story feel incomplete and unbalanced. As if a big chunk of story was missing that would have helped it transition more smoothly from the first 60-70% of the book to the end. The ending felt as if it was a bit forced to get there.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

While the premise was unique and interesting, a lot of this felt pretty rushed.

Overall it was a fun, fast read and I think it would be great for anyone looking for a fairytale retelling.

This is the origin story of Jezebel who I believe goes on to become a villain in the The Stolen Kingdom series. Having never read any of Atazadeh's books before, I was worried that I would struggle to get into this, and whilst I might have lost some of the nuance, the novella was very enjoyable.

At the beginning I was concerned about the lack of development of Jezebel's friends, but this becomes clear and necessary as you continue reading. No spoilers! You really see Jezebel's growth throughout the novella as she comes into her own, and the startings of a villain. Atazadeh does a great job of making us empathise with Jezebel. I kept reading to find out what she would do next!

I would recommend to anyone that enjoys YA fantasy for a fun, quick read. I'll definitely be checking out some of the author's other work.

The first book in a new trilogy. Jezebel thought she could trust her friends, but she was wrong. She has to decide just how far she's willing to go to protect and save herself. On one hand I want to root for her, but as she continues on her journey, I'm on the fence. I can see why she made the choices she made. When you don't learn the life lessons you need to make good and moral choices, a person as a tendency to make bad choices. I have trouble with stories that are told by the protagonist pov, because I want to like the main character and that's hard to do when they're not always a good person. It does make for an interesting read, though.

It was difficult to enjoy this novella without having read the series, because even though it’s a standalone, it heavily depends on you knowing how the story continues in order to appreciate how exactly Jezebel, the girl protagonist here, will become the villain she is said to be later.

Without that full-picture frame, the story doesn’t strike me at all like a “villain origins story” but rather like an attempt at a coming of age story in which parents are awful, adolescents behave like adolescents, silly pranks go wrong, trust is betrayed and consequences are dire. Very typical. You could argue that’s the point, that this explains Jezebel’s later villainy, but what did she do later? How is the seed of villainy planted here? I’m not sure, it seems to go with the “they were terrible to me, so I’ll be terrible to everyone” trope in which a villain’s evil and bad behaviour is justified by other people’s evil and bad behaviour. Tit for tat, you bad, me badder, you cruel, me crueler.

That’s honestly not the type of origins story I’d consider compelling or possessing an interesting complexity. I couldn’t be made to invest in or care for Jezebel’s plight. And on top of that, because this is a novella, the worldbuilding isn't good, it's almost relegated to the background. I’d imagine it feels richer and more developed if you’ve read the series, but again, the novella doesn’t really stand on its own without the series, so it doesn’t work as an introduction to the world for someone who hasn’t read the series, either, but as a complement.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jezebel has a secret … she has the Gift of shape-shifting and can’t let anyone know. Many would want to exploit this gift and others would want to take it away from her. She knows she needs to keep it hidden, but when one of her friends sees her practicing her Gift, her fears are realized and she is blackmailed into using the Gift for selfish reasons. What will Jezebel be asked to do? How will she respond?

The Secret Gift is the first book in The Queen’s Rise series. The description asks “WHAT IF THE EVIL QUEEN WAS INNOCENT UNTIL SHE WAS BETRAYED?” and that made me want to read this book, but Jezebel is far from being royalty, let alone the actual queen. Knowing that “EVIL QUEEN” is in her future, this story was fascinating and fun, but without that one statement, I’m not sure I would know what the purpose of this book was. I want to see how the next book continues the story to see if it is a true fairytale retelling.

The Secret Gift by Bethany Atazadeh is sure to captivate readers with the interesting villain origin story.

This book can definitely be read independently of the other books in this world/series. This is the first book I have read by the author (although it won't be the last).

Jezebel has learned that everyone who she allows to use her will pounce upon the opportunity. Her gift is valuable and something she is sure everyone in her life will want to take advantage of, even at her detriment. When her secret shapeshifting abilities come to light, how far will she go to protect herself and her secrets?

Jezebel's misbelief is written really well. It is clear why she thinks people will want to use her. I could understand her fear of trusting others and could see how in her position, it would be easy to let fear reign.

The worldbuilding was really solid in this book. The culture felt believable, while being fairly unique.

I thought Jezebel's descent into villainy was a bit too steep. I would have loved to see more time between each of her steps into darkness. I would have loved to see her react to each of her crimes and slowly become numb to the guilt.

Overall, this book was a quick, clean, easy read. I would recommend this book to lovers of fairy tale retellings!

I received a review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The premise was really unique and exciting, after all, who doesn't love a fairy tale retelling? It was definitely fun to read, and the worldbuilding was done masterfully. I got a sense of how the world of Jinn works and a decent understanding of the characters' backstories and personalities at face value. I really loved how it all unfolded and the presentation of Bel and what she had to go through.

However, I thought that some parts of the story were really rushed, such as Bel's first experience in the human world; that scene with the human child could have had more prose, which would've helped build up Bel's character. I haven't read the other books so obviously I don't have any previous experience with the characters, but reading this for the first time made some of the characters, such as Prince Shem, seem kind of flat. In fact, Shem came off as really naive instead of princely.

The Secret Gift was an okay read.. it didn't do much of it's own thing, and instead felt like every other fantasy out there. The plot and characters were pretty meh and it was hard to understand what tone the author was going for.

I really enjoyed this book. While it read a lot like any other fantasy young adult novel, it was a refreshing change of pace to read the story of a villain rather than the hero. I’m a huge fan of digging into the background of characters, and learning what drives the choices that they make, however good or bad. I was not disappointed at all.

I enjoyed Jezebel’s development into a more fierce and confident person. Though I knew that she would eventually become the villain, I couldn’t help but root for her as she refused to allow her friends to use her for her gift, and as she stood up to her father. While I didn’t actually agree with the things she did, I understood why she would feel that she had no other choice. I loved seeing her develop from someone meek and quiet into someone clever and manipulative, always seeming to think ahead and survive.

Overall, this was a fast, fun read and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

This book had a good world building and an interesting magic system, but ultimately it was not for me. I think it's because I'm not sure about how I feel about the FMC. She became unlikable to me too quickly in this story and I lost sympathy for her. Even though its stated it could be read as a standalone, I think it would have been beneficial to me personally to have read the preceding series to get better context, because I enjoyed the premise of why an evil queen became evil.

It felt a little cookie-cutter fantasy, like it was going through a tick list. The dialogue felt stiff and unnatural, which brought the tone down. Overall, a good read, but not one I would jump to recommend

I little tale about trust and friendships and how to find yourself. Villains really are not born but made. I’m interested to know what will happen next and glad this was a quick and good read.