You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
For the first third of this book, I was super into it. Then things started to get a little rocky. And then the ship breached on the rocks and got all leaky. Everything eventually righted itself and the imaginary sailors plugged up all the holes or whatever, but it was too late. My goodwill had already leaked out.
I did not anticipate beating that metaphor to death when I started it, but I am not going to delete it because it accurately represents how I feel about the experience of reading this book, which was probably about 100 pages too long, and messy as hell in its second half. It was like watching a slow motion car crash. I could see it falling apart.
Nick and Bex are Oxford classmates and live in the same building. Bex is an American on exchange, and Nick is Prince Nicholas, the future King of England. They fall in love. That part was lovely! The authors brought a realness to both characters that made them pop in my mind, and their chemistry was very sweet and intoxicating in only the way that love stories can be in the beginning.
And then as Bex and Nick hit roadblocks in their relationship, the book started to hit them too. It mostly held through the middle but by the time I hit about the 66% mark, it almost lost me. The pacing of the story went from relatively smooth to rocky and jumpy as hell. Key moments were skipped over willy nilly. Time jumps ahoy! Things that needed resolving either weren't resolved, or the way they were resolved was unsatisfying. There was a specific moment where something overly dramatic happened (overly dramatic happenings are nearly always a sign of the authors having lost control of the story) and someone witnessed something happening, and then we don't get a reaction from them for 150 pages. We jump from this random thing, into another really dramatic random thing and it was unbelievably jarring. () When the book hits the home stretch, there are also weird story jumps all over the place.
I don't need my stories to be completely smooth sailing. I like there to be conflict. But I like that conflict to seem organic, and to feel right. The way this was written felt messy and constructed, and it pulled most of the joy of the story out of the experience.
I might read the sequel out of curiosity, but I'll coming to it with more skepticism than I did this one. I liked it overall, but I'm also disappointed.
I did not anticipate beating that metaphor to death when I started it, but I am not going to delete it because it accurately represents how I feel about the experience of reading this book, which was probably about 100 pages too long, and messy as hell in its second half. It was like watching a slow motion car crash. I could see it falling apart.
Nick and Bex are Oxford classmates and live in the same building. Bex is an American on exchange, and Nick is Prince Nicholas, the future King of England. They fall in love. That part was lovely! The authors brought a realness to both characters that made them pop in my mind, and their chemistry was very sweet and intoxicating in only the way that love stories can be in the beginning.
And then as Bex and Nick hit roadblocks in their relationship, the book started to hit them too. It mostly held through the middle but by the time I hit about the 66% mark, it almost lost me. The pacing of the story went from relatively smooth to rocky and jumpy as hell. Key moments were skipped over willy nilly. Time jumps ahoy! Things that needed resolving either weren't resolved, or the way they were resolved was unsatisfying. There was a specific moment where something overly dramatic happened (overly dramatic happenings are nearly always a sign of the authors having lost control of the story) and someone witnessed something happening, and then we don't get a reaction from them for 150 pages. We jump from this random thing, into another really dramatic random thing and it was unbelievably jarring. (
Spoiler
I'm talking about Lacey witnessing Bex kiss Freddie and run away crying, and then it goes immediately into her father dying without even a chapter break. There is zero fallout in the moment from this, and it's not brought back in until the end of the book, after Lacey witnesses them kissing again, and makes more melodrama happen entirely offscreen, when we only learn about it after the fact.I don't need my stories to be completely smooth sailing. I like there to be conflict. But I like that conflict to seem organic, and to feel right. The way this was written felt messy and constructed, and it pulled most of the joy of the story out of the experience.
I might read the sequel out of curiosity, but I'll coming to it with more skepticism than I did this one. I liked it overall, but I'm also disappointed.
Absolutely loved it. Much more than I expected to. Wonderful book
Way too long. I feel like I would have enjoyed it better if it was condensed down 300 pages.
Fun, light, and gossipy! Good for a light read after I'd been reading several heavier books. Looking forward to reading the sequel too!
Cute British Royal family fanfiction. Nothing that made it stick out, but overall a fun and cute read!
Fabulous
This was lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, even the torturous ones because those brought about the most romantic but ever.
This was lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, even the torturous ones because those brought about the most romantic but ever.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Straight up delightful. I haven't read a book this fun and lovely in a long time. I almost read it again immediately after finishing it.
The Royal We is a thinly-veiled re-telling of the courtship between Kate Middleton and Prince William. While some elements remained the same (i.e. the common girl who the royal prince falls for), there are some new interesting elements included as well (e.g. that the girl is in fact an American and not British). Although the story comes in at over 400 pages, the story had me gripped from the start, because from the very beginning we are made aware that Bex has done something terrible before the day of her wedding. Something that could be revealed to Nick and would cost her the very relationship that she has built her life around.
American Bex Porter comes to Oxford, London on an exchange programme and an opportunity to see the world. Between her twin Lacey and herself, Bex has always been the trouble-maker and the slightly more wild child though she's never really fantasized about royalty, glamour or becoming a princess. But at Oxford she meets the handsome, slightly troubled Prince Nick, the heir to the throne. But falling for a prince brings more trouble that Bex could ever have possibly inhabited.
Bex is swept off into a world full of old-money and aristocrats who look down on an American girl whose father made his fortune selling homeware. The tabloids hound her, eager to find out more about the girl who has stolen the heart of the future King and Bex has to make sacrifices along the way in order to maintain her relationship with Nick. The pressure is all around her, to conform to the standards expected of the prince's intended and yet to try to maintain some semblance of the old Bex, the girl that Nick fell in love with.
With the pressure mounting, Bex makes a mistake that could cost her everything. On the eve of her wedding day, Bex has to determine whether everything that she has done up to this point was worth it.
I didn't expect much from The Royal We and went into it expecting something like [b:Spoiled|9415966|Spoiled (Spoiled, #1)|Jessica Morgan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327879074s/9415966.jpg|14300285] or [b:Messy|12814536|Messy (Spoiled, #2)|Heather Cocks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330495282s/12814536.jpg|17963827], the two YA books from the Fug Girls. But this book has certainly delivered a lot more than I would've thought possible. I thought that the book would be something light and sweet, like a fluffy Kate Middleton fan-fiction. And while there were definitely moments that were incredibly adorable, such as the meet-cute between Bex and Nick, there was also a lot more depth and complexity involved. A lot of the book happens in Bex's head, in that we get to see how she's psychologically affected by the events around her and how much pressure there is when it comes to dating royalty. Bex has to not only manage Nick's expectations of their relationship but also has to put up with the endless tabloid speculation and the prickly royal family who never see Bex as anything but unsuitable for the monarchy. Only Nick's younger brother (well, doesn't that sound familiar) Freddie seems to accept Bex into the family.
It's also really obvious that the Fug Girls have done their research about the book, from creating an Oxford that seems realistic to us readers to the different events that the monarchy participates in. I'm not entirely certain but I think that the timeline in which this story unfolded is probably around the same as the relationship between William and Kate as well. Creative licence has been taken with regard to some aspects of the novel, and some aspects work better than others. I thought that introducing nasty websites was a clever touch on how connected everyone is today and it all seems very believable.
Despite how enjoyable I found the book to be, the reason why the book is four stars instead of five was because of the last quarter, where the pacing and plotting falls short. All along the book leads us to the final quarter, where we get to find out how Bex messed up and what Nick's reaction is going to be. The secret itself was pretty shocking but the fall-out was lame.
American Bex Porter comes to Oxford, London on an exchange programme and an opportunity to see the world. Between her twin Lacey and herself, Bex has always been the trouble-maker and the slightly more wild child though she's never really fantasized about royalty, glamour or becoming a princess. But at Oxford she meets the handsome, slightly troubled Prince Nick, the heir to the throne. But falling for a prince brings more trouble that Bex could ever have possibly inhabited.
Bex is swept off into a world full of old-money and aristocrats who look down on an American girl whose father made his fortune selling homeware. The tabloids hound her, eager to find out more about the girl who has stolen the heart of the future King and Bex has to make sacrifices along the way in order to maintain her relationship with Nick. The pressure is all around her, to conform to the standards expected of the prince's intended and yet to try to maintain some semblance of the old Bex, the girl that Nick fell in love with.
With the pressure mounting, Bex makes a mistake that could cost her everything. On the eve of her wedding day, Bex has to determine whether everything that she has done up to this point was worth it.
I didn't expect much from The Royal We and went into it expecting something like [b:Spoiled|9415966|Spoiled (Spoiled, #1)|Jessica Morgan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327879074s/9415966.jpg|14300285] or [b:Messy|12814536|Messy (Spoiled, #2)|Heather Cocks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330495282s/12814536.jpg|17963827], the two YA books from the Fug Girls. But this book has certainly delivered a lot more than I would've thought possible. I thought that the book would be something light and sweet, like a fluffy Kate Middleton fan-fiction. And while there were definitely moments that were incredibly adorable, such as the meet-cute between Bex and Nick, there was also a lot more depth and complexity involved. A lot of the book happens in Bex's head, in that we get to see how she's psychologically affected by the events around her and how much pressure there is when it comes to dating royalty. Bex has to not only manage Nick's expectations of their relationship but also has to put up with the endless tabloid speculation and the prickly royal family who never see Bex as anything but unsuitable for the monarchy. Only Nick's younger brother (well, doesn't that sound familiar) Freddie seems to accept Bex into the family.
It's also really obvious that the Fug Girls have done their research about the book, from creating an Oxford that seems realistic to us readers to the different events that the monarchy participates in. I'm not entirely certain but I think that the timeline in which this story unfolded is probably around the same as the relationship between William and Kate as well. Creative licence has been taken with regard to some aspects of the novel,
Spoiler
such as Nick's mother developing a mental condition because of the pressure from the mediaDespite how enjoyable I found the book to be, the reason why the book is four stars instead of five was because of the last quarter, where the pacing and plotting falls short. All along the book leads us to the final quarter, where we get to find out how Bex messed up and what Nick's reaction is going to be. The secret itself was pretty shocking but the fall-out was lame.
Spoiler
Nick has every right to be angry with Freddie and Bex for what they've done and I just can't believe how easily he accepts everything. There's also unresolved problems between Freddie and Bex, because you can't very well make a move on your brother's girlfriend and then just pretend like it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. There has to be some kind of conscious decision being made and I don't think that Freddie's feelings towards Bex was properly resolved. The larger problem is, of course, how the Queen and the people would react if Bex's indiscretion makes it to the news and we don't find out anything about that either. All that hand-wringing about the media and its interaction with the monarchy and it never amounts to anything. It's just rather disappointing.
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes