Reviews - The Rules of Royalty

315 reviews for:

The Rules of Royalty

Cale Dietrich

3.32 AVERAGE

lil_booklover's review against another edition

4.25

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad 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: Complicated

neylane's review against another edition

3.0

funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

becreally's review against another edition

4.0

hopeful medium-paced

ogollovesbooks's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

biblionerdrflxn's review

3.0

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

***Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

I don’t quite know how to express my feelings about The Rules of Royalty. I’m conflicted. The premise was great, and I loved how it mixed ideas from The Princess Diaries and Red, White & Royal Blue into something fun for a YA audience. The story just required such a suspension of disbelief, and I wasn’t able to get there. Most aspects of the story also lacked depth, and I often found myself wanting more from it.

My favorite thing about The Rules of Royalty was how it made me feel while reading it. There were a ton of adorable moments, and the story had an atmosphere of positivity that was infectious. I grinned so much while reading and loved getting to experience the royal life alongside Jamie. Additionally, every interaction between Jamie and Erik was just so heartwarming and wholesome. They really were couple goals even if things did move a bit quick.

Unfortunately, the character development in The Rules of Royalty felt a bit lopsided. Jamie was seemingly great at everything and took the giant upheaval to his life in stride. It made him seem really flat. A perfect person doesn’t really make for a riveting character. Erik on the other hand had a great arc with significant growth. He had to learn to stand up for himself and not let his family control his whole life. Hiding his true self from everyone, even oftentimes himself, took its toll, and I loved that Jamie helped to kickstart Erik’s journey to living more authentically. I just wish Jamie had a more satisfying arc of his own considering the difficult circumstances he faced in learning to be a prince.

As for the plot of The Rules of Royalty, there wasn’t that much to it. Once Jamie finds out that he is a prince, the story mostly focuses on his lessons of royal etiquette and his blossoming relationship with Erik. Everyone accepted Jamie very quickly. He faced almost no obstacles that he didn’t immediately overcome. I needed way more angst. lol. The end finally provided a little more drama, but I never doubted that things would work out.

If you are looking for something heartwarming that doesn’t take itself too seriously, you might love this book, especially if you’ve ever harbored fantasies about being a secret royal. I wanted more depth and angst from both the plot and most of the characters. However, I still enjoyed my time with The Rules of Royalty and found the lovable vibes endearing. Therefore, I rate the book 3 out of 5 stars.

tuai's review against another edition

1.25

Dull. It is so unbearably dull.

The plot is fine, very juvenile and surface level, and every conflict resolves itself in like two minutes with barely any effort. But fine. As long as you decide to forget every single thing you know about european royalty. I do, sadly, live under a monarchy, and it's not like I'm well versed in the day to day life of the royals, but be for fucking real. "Oops, we only booked two rooms in the hotel, you'll have to share." Are you kidding? That hotel would be booked IN FULL months in advance. But okay, whatever, this is a fairytale and the there-was-only-one-bed trope is too strong to resist, WHATEVER. That's not what's wrong about this book.

The writing is so boring I wanted to claw my eyes out. Is it suddenly illegal to write beautiful prose? Emotionaly charged, aesthetically pleasing, profound prose? This book reads like it was written like the Simple English wikipedia, if you know what I mean. Like it was written for a class of English-as-a-second-language 13 year-olds. It is DULL!!

It scares me how much I like Jamie and how wonderful I think he is. Because I don't know what the future holds for us. What we're doing is fun, but I am becoming attached to him in a way I never have before.

I feel myself slipping into a coma. This scene should be emotional, it should make you feel for the characters, but I doesn't. How can it? It's all "I feel this, I feel that, I'm scared, I'm falling in love." SHOW ME, THEN. And it's repetitive, too. That same thought is expressed like twenty other times in the same dull, cold writing style.

We're in my room, with the door closed. Our bodies are pressed against each other, and we're practically tangled. It feels nice and cozy and perfect. I think I'd be truly happy if I could have moments like this for the rest of my life.

These are real quotes!! Verbatim. I don't feel the niceness, the coziness, the perfec... (ugh) the perfection of the moment. It doesn't feel warm like cuddling with the boy you like should feel like. It should feel like skin and wandering hands and the tickle of breath on a shoulder. Telling me "this is cozy" doesn't make it cozy! This is robotic and it makes me sad, honestly. Because even a silly little fairytale book about a teenager discovering he's a prince and falling in love with another prince deserves better than this. And maybe nobody else even cares about writing being good and beautiful and having heart anymore. Clearly there's a lot of people that have loved this book. But I care! I have a condition and it's called CARING TOO MUCH, and it's incurable!

captaincogs's review against another edition

3.5

lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

I loved the rumored Prince of England being gay mention 😭 if that wasn’t a nod to Red, White, and Royal Blue then I don’t know what was

geowhaley's review

3.5

My Recommendation: Definitely a read from me. It's cute and Erik and Jamie were adorable and perfect together. I loved that they were different enough but both grew into their own in the story without having to lose themselves in their families or their royal identities. There were so many minor characters that I loved and wanted to know more about, but Dietrich left us wanting just enough. Dietrich has also evolved as an author, this one has a bit more finesse and polish than his last solo novel I read, The Friend Scheme.

My Response: Imagine the Princess Diaries, but gay, with a few more edits and that's what you get here, and I loved it. I accepted this galley at some point last year and finally got around to it on vacation in March.*

Seriously, imagine on your 17th birthday your adoptive mother is like oh heyyyy remember how I've been open with you about your mom. Well your mom actually wanted me to keep all of this LIFE CHANGING INFORMATION FROM YOU. As if you weren't going through enough issues as a gay teen, throw in that you're apparently also a crown prince of a small European country, yeah oof.

Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.

*I received a copy of The Rules of Royalty via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.