Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The Princess Diaries (gender-swapped) meets Red White and Royal Blue. That's it, that's the book. Everything unspools as expected, the challenges are predictable. Enjoyable for someone who wants that story.
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
So shallow and boring. Neither Erik nor Jamie have any personality at all and I have no clue why they would like each other. I do appreciate the explicit lack of a love declaration though. Jamie never once questions what would be expected of him as a royal nor does he act like anything is wrong or bad. He's just floating through life. His friend max's reaction to his new family is realistic for a teen but so annoying. Im just underwhelmed with the characters, setting, plot, dialogue, everything.
The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich is a cozy and queer retelling of The Princess Diaries featuring an American teen who learns his father is the king of a small European country on his seventeenth birthday. Meanwhile, a queer second son from another kingdom receives an offer to tutor the newly found American prince in the ways of royalty.
This was cute, but I had to suspend my disbelief a bit too much and it was a little on the slow side for me. In the end, I DNFed at 55%. This is really geared towards the YA audience and as an adult reading it, it didn't really hold my interest. I wish there was a bit more conflict.
I think both narrators did a pretty good job with the audiobook, which I listened to while following along in my physical copy. Blended reads are very much my vibe at this point in my life.
I think this would be a great option for queer teens who love low stakes in their books and wished The Princess Diaries was more gay. The publisher recommends it for fans of Becky Albertalli (whom I haven't read yet) and Casey McQuiston.
I received a complimentary review copy from Wednesday Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley. All opinions contained herein are my own.
If you want to see more from me, check out my blog, Bookstagram, TheStoryGraph, Bluesky, or Twitter.
This was cute, but I had to suspend my disbelief a bit too much and it was a little on the slow side for me. In the end, I DNFed at 55%. This is really geared towards the YA audience and as an adult reading it, it didn't really hold my interest. I wish there was a bit more conflict.
I think both narrators did a pretty good job with the audiobook, which I listened to while following along in my physical copy. Blended reads are very much my vibe at this point in my life.
I think this would be a great option for queer teens who love low stakes in their books and wished The Princess Diaries was more gay. The publisher recommends it for fans of Becky Albertalli (whom I haven't read yet) and Casey McQuiston.
I received a complimentary review copy from Wednesday Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley. All opinions contained herein are my own.
If you want to see more from me, check out my blog, Bookstagram, TheStoryGraph, Bluesky, or Twitter.
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the audioARC in exchange for an honest review!
3.5 stars rounded up.
A super cute new book from one of the authors of If This Gets Out (a personal favorite of mine in recent years), crossing The Princess Diaries and Red White & Royal Blue.
Introverted high schooler Jamie Johnson has been trying to make the most of his last summer before graduation, hanging with his friends, working part-time at the local Cinnabon, and absolutely NOT talking to the hot guys he sees out and about. But then, on his birthday, his adoptive mother drops a bomb on him: he's the son of the king of Mitanor, a beautiful sunny country in the south of Europe, and the king wants him to visit and discover his place. In order to prepare him for his new role, the king hires the second son from the cold northern country of Sunstad, Erik Lindstrom. With the upcoming marriage of his older brother (and the heir to the Sunstad throne), this is Erik's chance to get out from under his grandmother's controlling thumb for a summer as he teaches Jamie how to be a royal.
This was adorable. I wouldn't say it was anything remarkable or unpredictable, but it was a lot of fun and I can see my students devouring it. Jamie is precious and naive and it's so much fun watching him develop into a proper royal throughout the course of the story. But Erik just had my heart from the get-go as the tightly-wound young man just trying to find some freedom in the face of his overly-controlling family. While their relationship felt a little insta-love-y, it was still fun to watch develop over the course of the story as both boys grew into their own.
The narrators were a mixed bag for me, honestly. I had to listen to the entire thing at 2.5x because they were both just so... slow... Which was still tolerable, but sadly something about the voice actor for Jamie didn't sell me whenever he was reading another characters' lines (especially Erik's), and I found myself cringing. Erik's actor, on the other hand, was amazing!
3.5 stars rounded up.
A super cute new book from one of the authors of If This Gets Out (a personal favorite of mine in recent years), crossing The Princess Diaries and Red White & Royal Blue.
Introverted high schooler Jamie Johnson has been trying to make the most of his last summer before graduation, hanging with his friends, working part-time at the local Cinnabon, and absolutely NOT talking to the hot guys he sees out and about. But then, on his birthday, his adoptive mother drops a bomb on him: he's the son of the king of Mitanor, a beautiful sunny country in the south of Europe, and the king wants him to visit and discover his place. In order to prepare him for his new role, the king hires the second son from the cold northern country of Sunstad, Erik Lindstrom. With the upcoming marriage of his older brother (and the heir to the Sunstad throne), this is Erik's chance to get out from under his grandmother's controlling thumb for a summer as he teaches Jamie how to be a royal.
This was adorable. I wouldn't say it was anything remarkable or unpredictable, but it was a lot of fun and I can see my students devouring it. Jamie is precious and naive and it's so much fun watching him develop into a proper royal throughout the course of the story. But Erik just had my heart from the get-go as the tightly-wound young man just trying to find some freedom in the face of his overly-controlling family. While their relationship felt a little insta-love-y, it was still fun to watch develop over the course of the story as both boys grew into their own.
The narrators were a mixed bag for me, honestly. I had to listen to the entire thing at 2.5x because they were both just so... slow... Which was still tolerable, but sadly something about the voice actor for Jamie didn't sell me whenever he was reading another characters' lines (especially Erik's), and I found myself cringing. Erik's actor, on the other hand, was amazing!
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
**There is currently a boycott going on against St. Martins Press and I completely missed that this was published under a St. Martins imprint so I am VERY sorry for crossing a picket line**
This has been my second attempt to find a romcom that I didn't completely hate. It's definitely much more of a romance than a romcom, but it was fine.
If I had read this while I was in high school, I probably would have been obsessed with it. But now that I'm almost out of college, it was a little painfully PG which is just not what I'm interested in right now. I found this in the non-YA romance section of the bookstore and I'm kind of convinced this was supposed to be YA and somehow wasn't published as a YA book.
Definitely wasn't bad. Unlike some of the other romance novels I've read in the last few years, I can actually understand why someone would enjoy it and I wasn't writing "I want to kill myself" in the margins the whole time. It's good as a fluffy little "baby's first gay romance novel" so if that's what you or someone else is looking for, I definitely recommend it.
I appreciate how good the characters are at communicating with each other and how empathetic they are towards each other. One of the things that has bothered me in half of the other romance books I've read were how terrible they were at talking to each other. One of the major conflicts in the book isErik's family constantly controlling his every move because every little thing he does needs to be approved by his grandmother, the queen. So I was expecting a huge falling out after Erik insists they can't be public or that they had to break up because "You'll never know what it's like to not be able to make any of your own decisions" and Jamie would respond "Why do you let them control you" or something along those lines. But every time this comes up, Jamie is completely understanding and it never turns into a huge fight. It's genuinely refreshing to see 17 year olds maturely talk things out and work through their problems like adults when half of the romance books Ive read are about grown adults and just devolve into (or start with) a huge fight and a breakup before the 3rd act because they can't put themselves in the other persons shoes.
This has been my second attempt to find a romcom that I didn't completely hate. It's definitely much more of a romance than a romcom, but it was fine.
If I had read this while I was in high school, I probably would have been obsessed with it. But now that I'm almost out of college, it was a little painfully PG which is just not what I'm interested in right now. I found this in the non-YA romance section of the bookstore and I'm kind of convinced this was supposed to be YA and somehow wasn't published as a YA book.
Definitely wasn't bad. Unlike some of the other romance novels I've read in the last few years, I can actually understand why someone would enjoy it and I wasn't writing "I want to kill myself" in the margins the whole time. It's good as a fluffy little "baby's first gay romance novel" so if that's what you or someone else is looking for, I definitely recommend it.
I appreciate how good the characters are at communicating with each other and how empathetic they are towards each other. One of the things that has bothered me in half of the other romance books I've read were how terrible they were at talking to each other. One of the major conflicts in the book is