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drie80 's review for:
The Rules of Royalty
by Cale Dietrich
First, thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Rules of Royalty starts out with so much promise. The story idea is cute and fun - an American teenager finds out on his 17th birthday that he is is actually the long-lost Prince of Mitanor, a fictional European country. His biological father, the king, invites him to come stay at the palace and get to know his family and arranges for another prince to help him out with the adjustment. The whole thing feels very inspired by The Princess Diaries, but with a Red White and Royal Blue twist. The whole thing is fun escapist fiction that doesn't need to be taken too seriously to be enjoyable and I would have rated it much higher than the three (generous) stars I am giving it except the whole book just kind of fell flat for me.
To start with, the story is told from two viewpoints - Jamie, the new prince, and Erik, his tutor. Despite being from completely different backgrounds, with different educational experiences and speaking different first languages, the two guys have the exact same voice. Like, I had to repeatedly check the chapter headings to see whose viewpoint I was supposed to be reading because they were almost completely indistinguishable.
Next, the books tells a lot but it doesn't show a lot. There's an aside midway through the book where Erik mentions a joke his upright Queen grandmother told him. It's meant to show us that she can let loose at times. But we don't find out what the joke was. The whole book is like this. We are told about conversations, we don't experience them. It was like reading the boys' diary accounts of the plot and not actually going through the story with them.
Finally, there was no real conflict. Every issue that arises in the book - from Jamie's feeling of betrayal that his adoptive mother never told him who he really was, to his fight with is best friend Max back home, to the essential plot of the book which is whether or not Erik and Jamie can date each other - is wrapped up so easily, and so tidily, with so little mess and fuss that I was left feeling like there was no there there.
I hated only giving this book 3 stars, but, at the end of the day, it's the best I can do. It's such a great premise and had so much potential and promise but in the end... it just wasn't great.
The Rules of Royalty starts out with so much promise. The story idea is cute and fun - an American teenager finds out on his 17th birthday that he is is actually the long-lost Prince of Mitanor, a fictional European country. His biological father, the king, invites him to come stay at the palace and get to know his family and arranges for another prince to help him out with the adjustment. The whole thing feels very inspired by The Princess Diaries, but with a Red White and Royal Blue twist. The whole thing is fun escapist fiction that doesn't need to be taken too seriously to be enjoyable and I would have rated it much higher than the three (generous) stars I am giving it except the whole book just kind of fell flat for me.
To start with, the story is told from two viewpoints - Jamie, the new prince, and Erik, his tutor. Despite being from completely different backgrounds, with different educational experiences and speaking different first languages, the two guys have the exact same voice. Like, I had to repeatedly check the chapter headings to see whose viewpoint I was supposed to be reading because they were almost completely indistinguishable.
Next, the books tells a lot but it doesn't show a lot. There's an aside midway through the book where Erik mentions a joke his upright Queen grandmother told him. It's meant to show us that she can let loose at times. But we don't find out what the joke was. The whole book is like this. We are told about conversations, we don't experience them. It was like reading the boys' diary accounts of the plot and not actually going through the story with them.
Finally, there was no real conflict. Every issue that arises in the book - from Jamie's feeling of betrayal that his adoptive mother never told him who he really was, to his fight with is best friend Max back home, to the essential plot of the book which is whether or not Erik and Jamie can date each other - is wrapped up so easily, and so tidily, with so little mess and fuss that I was left feeling like there was no there there.
I hated only giving this book 3 stars, but, at the end of the day, it's the best I can do. It's such a great premise and had so much potential and promise but in the end... it just wasn't great.