Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - A Tale of Two Princes

I think I'm really going to give this 2.5 stars because that was...a book. Lol. At the beginning, I could suspend disbelief for the Canadian monarchy thing. Sure, maybe it's something that could happen. However, it doesn't seem like the author did a lot of reserach into what it actually takes to establish a monarchy. Most of the details of the monarchy didn't feel remotely realistic, and they acted like it was something that had a long standing tradition. Which, it does in England (where the King and Queen came from. Well, kind of. The Queen was American which is why they left the English monarchy). But not in Canada. Seemed like they could have done things to make it better.

But I digress! Aside from the very bizarre details of the Canadian monarchy, the rest of the book didn't really seem to redeem it. We get two points of view, one from Edward and one from Billy, and it was difficult to tell who was speaking. I had to flip back multiple times to figure out whose chapter I was in. The side characters honestly weren't all that much better, minus Pax who I loved. Pax was one of the only redeeming qualities of this book, honestly. They were great.

Also, I had a problem with the timeline of this book. You're telling me if the monarchy suddenly found out that their long lost son was alive, they would just immediately re-instate him as Crown prince? Like, all of this stuff happens in about two months time, and everyone is surprised that Billy doesn't know the expectations of being a royal?? That's a lot to learn!! Not to mention, Edward's plan to sabotage him also seemed kind of out of left field. Couldn't he have, like, talked to his parents first? His parents who just suddenly have this new son, and seem to prioritize the new son over the one they've raised from birth?? It was just an overall weird dynamic, and I didn't understand it.

I don't know, guys, this is just a bizarre book. It doesn't fit any of the comp titles (Princess Diaries, Parent Trap, Red, White & Royal Blue) in my opinion. I can't say I would recommend it unless you're ready to exclaim "WTF??!?" every few chapters.

Content Warnings

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

Oh dear.

What to even say about this book? Where to begin?

I guess first I must thank Kait for bringing this book to my attention. This was really truly quite the read.

And thank you to all my friends who listened to my live reactions. You made reading this worth it.

And of course, disclaimer, I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, this doesn't change my opinions. All quotes are taken from the arc and subject to change.

Alright, now I guess let's begin with the premise: Canada has a monarchy.

That in itself is so much, but the way this was executed.... even worse.

So, why does Canada have a monarchy? How old is it? How does this monarchy work?

All of these are truly fantastic questions, that the book of course does not answer. We are given the backstory that the new King (the Queen of England's eldest son!) and Queen of Canada fled England in a move dubbed "Frexit," "in hopes of escaping the scrutiny of the English press." Because they woke up each morning to "a new disparaging headline... about Mum being a lowly commoner from Canada." (If you were wondering, she's white.) So they were "prepared to leave the Royal Family and relinquish their official titles," but apparently the Canadian prime minister "recognized that Canadian love for the Royal Family was good for business. (Our official merch alone contributes greatly to Canada's bottom line.)"

I don't even know what to say about this. I guess that I thought the cost of a Royal Family could not simply be made up for with an ???official merch line??? Also the fact that the new King of Canada was the Crown Prince of England. It's okay though because he was born on Canadian soil!!

There is a mention later that the king's role is of a checks-and-balances sort to "[make] sure everything is in the best interest of Canada. His role is to provide something called royal assent, which brings parliamentary bills into law. And his rubber-stamping of everything."

Again, why is this necessary though?? Why is there a Canadian monarchy??? It's mentioned in just a throwaway line that they transferred the powers of the governor general over to him, but once again I am asking why?????

This book isn't actually about them though, but their sons: Edward, raised by the King and Queen as Crown Prince of Canada, and Billy, raised in Montana as a cowboy. They end up meeting in New York City (because of course this book about two Canadian princes has to spend most of the page time not in fact in Canada), and this is where the drama comes in.

It turns out that Billy was actually born first and is the true Crown Prince of Canada. (He was raised as a cowboy because his cowparents were in Montreal for a wedding a week before the due date and then the baby decided to show up early and they rushed to the hospital, the same hospital that the King and Queen were at. The Queen was actually pregnant with twins, though they didn't let the press know this. Cowbaby and the older Princebaby both had complications and were rushed off to the NICU for emergency surgery. Unfortunately Cowbaby died, but here was a mixup and the nurses told the Queen that her baby died, and Cowmom was given the Princebaby and raised him in Montana.)

The twins's birthday is coming up, and because they're turning 18, the Crown Prince is supposed to do an Investiture Ceremony. Edward, of course, has been preparing for this his whole life, while Billy has possibly never even been to Canada before. But of course they can't just have Edward be Crown Prince. That wouldn't be right. Must follow tradition!!

So they introduce Billy to the public as the long lost new Crown Prince of Canada, and he ends up coming out as gay. (This is after a bunch of Edward looking disparagingly at Billy and thinking about how "Billy is the straight version of [him].") The Royal Advisor, Gord, is not pleased with this, says "That's why we must have to do everything in our power to assure the line of succession will continue, to promise that the royal lineage won't be snuffed out after only two generations, and to pledge that Billy isn't going to be pushing a gay agenda." (Yes, he is the villain.)

Edward is upset because his crown was just stolen by a guy who "isn't even Canadian" (not exactly incorrect, but also can we talk about how the King himself is hardly Canadian?), and also because he's realizing he could have been out this whole time, and also now that Billy's "coming out makes it feel impossible for me to ever come out, like he's stolen my thunder by coming out first."

There's a bunch of plot with them not getting along that I'm not going to go into the details of because this review is already going to be long enough.

Another thing I really hated about this book was just how many times the word maple was used: one-hundred, ninety-eight (198!) instances. This includes Billy's best friend giving him "a pair of maple leaf tighty-whities" for the Investiture Ceremony. In a turn of events that everyone appreciates I'm sure, this is plot relevant.

So at the Investiture Ceremony, after he's been given the scepter, the crown, etc. Billy's pants rip. In front of everyone. So everyone gets to see the maple leaf underwear.

The Firm then uses this as an excuse to oust Billy from his position as Crown Prince:

The Firm, along with the prime minister, has determined that Prince Billy is not fit to rule and will be stripped of his titles, patronages, security, and funds. Noncompliance will result in the Canadian monarchy as a whole being dissolved. The prime minister has called for a section 41 amendment vote at the House of Commons to push through this change in law so that HRH Prince Edward will be heir to the Crown of Canada.

By this point though Edward has realized that really, Billy deserves the Crown.

There's a plot involving a woman Edward was fake dating, Fi, that results in Edward "hoping Fi will forgive [me] for what I'm about to say" (that he's gay) just a few mere paragraphs after he gets mad at her and breaks up with her for ruining Billy's life via leaking some photos. And then he spends entirely too long agonizing about how bad he feels for "lying" to her. I hate this entire plot line and the way Fi is treated in the story, where she's essentially looked down upon for being ambitious, but also suffers no consequences for her actions that harmed Billy. It seems like the author is trying to portray her as complicated, but he entirely fails.

Anyways, after this all occurs, he sets out to restore public opinion in hopes that will make the parliament change their minds and not take the crown away from Billy. This doesn't exactly work/is abandoned in favor of other plot, when they learn that Gord has been the villain the whole time and is super homophobic. Of course, he was responsible for the sabotage of Billy's suit that resulted in his underwear being shown to everyone and thus the decision to strip him of the crown.

In an unsurprising turn of events, they get a recording of Gord confessing and run over to the House of Commons to stop the vote. They arrive too late, with the House already voting unanimously in favor of changing the line of succession so Edward has the crown back. When they show the King the video of the confession though, he says, "Our royal adviser is to blame for Billy's incident. Therefore, Billy's title will be reconferred." Like it's that easy and the vote didn't matter whatsoever, which frankly doesn't make sense and seems in incredibly poor taste, given Canada's long history of colonialism. Of course this book doesn't want you to actually think about that.

Later in the book, the King issues an Official Communication that in addition to saying press secretaries will undergo proper sensitivity training and a diversity officer will be hired (lmao), says "It took an important vote to change the Succession Law. We thank Billy for his patience as we awaited his confirmation to the line of succession. We have sincerely apologized to him for any upset."

This line of course is incredibly confusing because they're referring to the vote that would have taken the Crown away from Billy, yes??? The vote that did in fact unanimously give the crown to Edward for the few minutes before the King decided to just throw it away???

Anyways.

So the Firm ends up apologizing publicly and privately for this whole thing, which seems incredibly far-fetched, but whatever, not this book's worst offense.

And this is described as a "new age for the monarchy."

So, to return to the topic of the monarchy.

Billy is set to be future king, but Edward needs a role I guess, so he suggests that he becomes Billy's official royal adviser, you know because the last one turned out to be totally homophobic.

"We can arrange that," Dad says. "It'll be nice to have a royal adviser who isn't trying to oust the Crown Prince through latent homophobia. I like this!"
"Even better-a royal adviser in full support of equal rights." All this time, I was being groomed by someone with inherent bias and homophobia.

A few pages later, there's this gem:

It's truly time for a monarchy that supports all within its walls. A time of progress. A time of inclusion.
And now, the Canadian monarchy will flourish as was first intended, with no one left to set us off course. We're here to stay. If there's any more homophobia, or hate of any kind, we're on it.

This is of course an incredibly idealized and pinkwashed sentiment of what a monarchy is and does.

In the author's letter at the beginning, he says:

I also wanted to shine a light on what homophobia looks like today... This is the true villain in my book, the force actively working to keep the main characters from reaching their happily-ever-afters.

Because homophobia and the monarchy definitely don't operate hand in hand.

With this in mind, I want to discuss this book's disgustingly pro-monarchy sentiment. Repeatedly anti-monarchists and homophobes are put in the same sentence, implying that they are on a similar level of bad (not to say that the anti-monarchists are bad; they absolutely are not. The book just views them that way)

Even though this Canadian monarchy is only 18 years old, and arguably the people of Canada did not and do not want it, this book repeatedly shovels down the reader's throat, how fantastic it is, and how it's for "the good of Canada" that Billy or Edward is the future ruler and doesn't mess this up.

A smaller group of protestors holding antimonarchy signs is exactly what the Royals fear. Gord told me at one of our lessons that the Canadian monarchy continues to be in fine standing, despite the many loud voices of dissent. When Mum and Dad first moved to Canada, there was a movement by the francophone population to abolish the monarchy altogether. Other factions hoped the "silly tradition" would phase out. The majority of Canadians saw the establishment of a new monarchy as a tremendous step backward for the country. But the votes at the time shockingly showed otherwise.

There is one singular time that a monarchy is even implied to be a bad thing: "Interesting how Gord's not going over the British Royals' colonial past, racist present, incest..." This of course is never brought up again, and there is no thinking critically about the Canadian Royals. They are perfect and exactly what Canada needs, what would Canada do without them?

The pro-monarchy sentiment even goes so far as to have Edward view it as a good thing when a group of monarchy fans swarm and pull a teenager with an antimonarchy sign to ground. I wish I were joking.

Something in the crowd catches my eye: a random teenager waves an antimonarchy sign, but then the HeirHeads swarm over him, pulling him to the ground. He disappears underneath the crush of bodies. Leave it up to the fervent fans to wipe out any haters.
Now that I'm looking, I notice there's a small smattering of antimonarchists at this end of the street, and a few antigay protestors parading around and waving signs at the opposite end of the street, both groups drowned out by chanting and yelling HeirHeads.
Hopefully the fans continue their crowd control.

While this book is bad, it could have, to some degree, have been saved if it ended with the abolition of the monarchy, but of course it didn't.

Assorted Other Complaints:

The way the author would scrub a single digit of a serial number off of characters:

Eliza II, Queen of England

Liam, Duke of Cambridge

Caroline, Duchess of Cambridge

Harold, Duke of Sussex

Maitaine, Duchess of Sussex

Ryder Russell and Blaire Ivy

For some reason though the author didn't do this with Lil Nas X or Ariana Grande, who appear in the book as themselves.

It is mentioned that the city of Toronto gives Casa Loma to the King and Queen "as a gift for the new monarchy" because you know, turning a tourist attraction into a private residence for the monarchy really benefits Canada's bottom line. But of course, the <i>merch line</i> must more than make up for it, right?

The Daily Maple

Being set in Canada, of course it had to have its own version of the Daily Mail. The only writer for the Daily Maple is Omar Scooby. Of course it is not explicitly stated that Omar is Muslim, but as that is a name most often used by Muslim families, it does not feel like a far-fetched conclusion. Why couldn't the author have chosen a whiter name to play the role of tabloid writer?

There are no queer women in this book.

In the author's letter, he says:

In drafting A Tale of Two Princes, it was important for me to create something not only for those who are out but also for those who are not out and who are not queer.

Of course I take no issue with the for those who are not out portion. That's fantastic. But the part about those who are not queer is interesting. Going through the queer characters in this book, we have a lot of gay men and then one nonbinary person, who I am not convinced isn't nonbinary solely to save the book from complaints of there being so many gay men and zero (0!) queer women. (Obviously, I am still complaining.) Edward does end up saying "perhaps queer fits better for me" because said aforementioned nonbinary person is his love interest, which basically just reads like he's gay but thinks "gay" as a sexuality is incompatible with liking a nonbinary person, which feels weird.

In any matter, this all makes it seem like the author cares more about writing for straight people than queer women.

Of course, the weirdness surrounding queerness does not stop there. I will lay out the first two sentences of the last chapter without comment because I think they speak for themselves:

It's a perfect last Sunday in June as the rainbow carriage we stand in glides past Stonewall Inn. The crowds cheer, and cops on motorcycles with pride flags flowing off the back drive in front of us.

This scene also mentions that people are holding signs that say #Twinces, and my personal favorite Love Twins. Much like the rest of this book, it's clear the author didn't actually think about the implications of this.

In conclusion, thank you if you made it through this long review, and I am once again asking for you to abolish the Canadian monarchy <3

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