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A review by themermaddie
A Tale of Two Princes by Eric Geron
1.0
i feel horrible about how mean this review is going to be so eric geron, if by some chance you're reading this, please turn back now, it's nothing personal, i promise.
...
i almost cried several times while reading this book, and not in the good way. i've never wanted to DNF a book so badly, and only my stubborn completionist side of me allowed me to get through it. i visibly and audibly reacted to events in this book because they were so stupid and unbelievable that i physically could not stop myself. i was sat on the tube rolling my eyes so hard it hurt. how did this absolute DRIVEL ever get through the publishing process?? this reads like a 13 year old's first time writing RWRB fanfiction (which i say as a fic reader and a RWRB fan) and i don't understand how an editor let this shit get through to publication. basically none of this book makes sense. the characters are all about as deep as a puddle, they all seem like they hate each other, and they spend the entire book making rash decisions based off inane epiphanies.
can we first address the elephant in the room: CANADIAN MONARCHY???? listen. there's inventing-a-fictional-monarchy-for-plot-reasons and then there's fuck-you-i-just-wanted-to-write-about-princes; this reads like a DCOM movie and not in a good way, which actually makes sense when you realise that eric geron has written the Descendants novels. this is like what a 13 year old thinks the monarchy does, there's so much talk about "deserving the crown" with zero actual implications of what that would entail. apparently the responsibilities of the crown are so tiring and tedious bc you have to remember the royal rules and learn the history of the country you literally rule :( how terribly taxing, poor you. this is completely ignoring the fact that putting a random 18 year old from montana on the canadian throne after one month's training is absolute INSANITY, particularly when you've been grooming edward for this role his whole life. tradition is just soooo important that we MUST put this stranger on the throne, oh well! have to bring his whole family (and best friend????) with him too i guess!! WHY WAS PAX ALLOWED TO COME?? IS THAT LEGAL?? THEYRE A MINOR. YOU CAN'T JUST WHISK A CHILD AWAY TO NYC?? YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN CHARGE OF NEW YORK???? WHY DOES THIS WHOLE BOOK ABOUT THE CANADIAN MONARCHY TAKE PLACE IN NYC?????
i'm sorry for shouting, it's just unbelievable to me how much shit this book got away with. and yes ofc in a royal book there's going to be some degree of pro-royalist sentiment but the amount of bootlicking in this book is insane. ZERO critical analysis of what it would mean to establish a monarchy in modern canada less than TWENTY YEARS AGO, particularly when the book itself admits that the people vocally did not want or need a monarchy. listen i don't need all my fun YA fantasy adjacent books to be super politically accurate or anything but it sure would be nice to have a plot that seemed like it was thought about for even a five minutes longer. i know so little about the legalese and the monarchy rules but even i know the fucking government DOES NOT WORK LIKE THIS. like at least fucking TRY to make this make sense?? you can't just vote on something in parliament and then do a takesies-backsies two minutes later. i'm sorry also i cannot BELIEVE you would write something as horrible and stupid as this book in which billy gets pulled off the throne for a WARDROBE MALFUNCTION in a world where harry and meghan's story actually happened. i'm far from a royalist but the shitshow that meghan was put through by the british tabloids was absolutely VILE, being subject to so much racist vitriol and death threats, and THIS is the fun spin off you come up with? a shallow white gay take on how homophobia is the real villain, actually, as though centuries of royal colonialism hasn't contributed at all to the oppression of queer and poc people, and that these are things that could ever go hand in hand! literally at the end of the book when they're celebrating pride in NYC, billy's reflecting on the events and feeling happy that he's surrounded by rainbows and COPS ON MOTORBIKES around STONEWALL....hello???? absolutely zero self-awareness for what pride actually means and celebrates. it's insensitive at best and offensively ignorant at worst. i hate the way that edward's constant griping about being closeted came out as "i can't stay closeted anymore, it's lying!" like bitch! you have a very good reason to stay closeted! i understand wanting to portray the pain of being closeted, but it's a horrible message to send that the sometimes necessary decision to stay closeted as an act of self-preservation makes you a liar.
this book is the epitome of rainbow capitalism and pro-monarchy sentiment sprinkled in, it's only interested in the aesthetics of queerness, and homophobia is seemingly nothing more than "i don't like you bc you're gay :(" instead of yknow, a deeply pervasive and insidious culture? everything is so sanitised and unbelievable that i actually think i'm homophobic now, i would be homophobic too if my options for king of Canada was EDWARD OR BILLY.
ok and those are only my issues with the ideology with the book, we haven't even gotten into the plot issues. I cannot stress this enough: this book is 450 pages of everybody gaslighting Billy. ALL ANYONE DOES IS LIE TO THAT BOY. if you were looking for parent trap hijinks from long lost twins, you are not going to find that here because Edward spends 75% of the book hating and sabotaging Billy. he only mostly stops doing this after one 30 minute conversation with him where he's like "hey maybe my brother isn't such a bad person even though he's never done anything bad to me on purpose". it's insane how many decisions characters make in this book because they have one quick conversation with someone that makes them realise that they've misjudged them all along. basically, every plot twist in this book is just a revelation that yet another person has lied to Billy. WHICH IS INSANE. GET A NEW SCHTICK.
The characters are flat, the plot makes no sense, things just happen. it's like one of those Wattpad novels that get updated every week based on what the readers want in the comments, ZERO foresight for future book events. we just meander from one plot point to another. oh my god, and don't even get me started on Sofia. clearly she was supposed to be a complex villain/anti-hero? but that is NOT what happened. edward flips so quickly back and forth between "she's my nemesis" to "i feel so horrible about lying to my friend :(" and you canNOT have it both ways. you either feel bad about deliberately deceiving her into thinking you are actually dating, or you tell her that you're fake dating and she remains your nemesis/necessary ally. instead you have this weird middle ground where edward tells sofia that they're fake dating, sofia falls for him for real (WHY? HE SUCKS??), and then when edward tells her he's gay she accuses him of stringing her along. why would she EVER do that??? she's supposed to be smart??? she also never faces any consequences for sending billy's personal info to the tabloids which is a HUGE breach of trust and would actually be a massive fucking scandal, and instead it's just "sorry i did that, i was jealous" and "no worries i forgive you." sorry WHAT?
i can't keep going on about this, we'll be here all day bc there was nothing good or redeeming about this book at all. go read gretal's review, it's much more well-thought out and coherent than this was.
in conclusion: this book made me sad, it made me homophobic, it made me wish i had read literally anything else.
...
i almost cried several times while reading this book, and not in the good way. i've never wanted to DNF a book so badly, and only my stubborn completionist side of me allowed me to get through it. i visibly and audibly reacted to events in this book because they were so stupid and unbelievable that i physically could not stop myself. i was sat on the tube rolling my eyes so hard it hurt. how did this absolute DRIVEL ever get through the publishing process?? this reads like a 13 year old's first time writing RWRB fanfiction (which i say as a fic reader and a RWRB fan) and i don't understand how an editor let this shit get through to publication. basically none of this book makes sense. the characters are all about as deep as a puddle, they all seem like they hate each other, and they spend the entire book making rash decisions based off inane epiphanies.
can we first address the elephant in the room: CANADIAN MONARCHY???? listen. there's inventing-a-fictional-monarchy-for-plot-reasons and then there's fuck-you-i-just-wanted-to-write-about-princes; this reads like a DCOM movie and not in a good way, which actually makes sense when you realise that eric geron has written the Descendants novels. this is like what a 13 year old thinks the monarchy does, there's so much talk about "deserving the crown" with zero actual implications of what that would entail. apparently the responsibilities of the crown are so tiring and tedious bc you have to remember the royal rules and learn the history of the country you literally rule :( how terribly taxing, poor you. this is completely ignoring the fact that putting a random 18 year old from montana on the canadian throne after one month's training is absolute INSANITY, particularly when you've been grooming edward for this role his whole life. tradition is just soooo important that we MUST put this stranger on the throne, oh well! have to bring his whole family (and best friend????) with him too i guess!! WHY WAS PAX ALLOWED TO COME?? IS THAT LEGAL?? THEYRE A MINOR. YOU CAN'T JUST WHISK A CHILD AWAY TO NYC?? YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN CHARGE OF NEW YORK???? WHY DOES THIS WHOLE BOOK ABOUT THE CANADIAN MONARCHY TAKE PLACE IN NYC?????
i'm sorry for shouting, it's just unbelievable to me how much shit this book got away with. and yes ofc in a royal book there's going to be some degree of pro-royalist sentiment but the amount of bootlicking in this book is insane. ZERO critical analysis of what it would mean to establish a monarchy in modern canada less than TWENTY YEARS AGO, particularly when the book itself admits that the people vocally did not want or need a monarchy. listen i don't need all my fun YA fantasy adjacent books to be super politically accurate or anything but it sure would be nice to have a plot that seemed like it was thought about for even a five minutes longer. i know so little about the legalese and the monarchy rules but even i know the fucking government DOES NOT WORK LIKE THIS. like at least fucking TRY to make this make sense?? you can't just vote on something in parliament and then do a takesies-backsies two minutes later. i'm sorry also i cannot BELIEVE you would write something as horrible and stupid as this book in which billy gets pulled off the throne for a WARDROBE MALFUNCTION in a world where harry and meghan's story actually happened. i'm far from a royalist but the shitshow that meghan was put through by the british tabloids was absolutely VILE, being subject to so much racist vitriol and death threats, and THIS is the fun spin off you come up with? a shallow white gay take on how homophobia is the real villain, actually, as though centuries of royal colonialism hasn't contributed at all to the oppression of queer and poc people, and that these are things that could ever go hand in hand! literally at the end of the book when they're celebrating pride in NYC, billy's reflecting on the events and feeling happy that he's surrounded by rainbows and COPS ON MOTORBIKES around STONEWALL....hello???? absolutely zero self-awareness for what pride actually means and celebrates. it's insensitive at best and offensively ignorant at worst. i hate the way that edward's constant griping about being closeted came out as "i can't stay closeted anymore, it's lying!" like bitch! you have a very good reason to stay closeted! i understand wanting to portray the pain of being closeted, but it's a horrible message to send that the sometimes necessary decision to stay closeted as an act of self-preservation makes you a liar.
this book is the epitome of rainbow capitalism and pro-monarchy sentiment sprinkled in, it's only interested in the aesthetics of queerness, and homophobia is seemingly nothing more than "i don't like you bc you're gay :(" instead of yknow, a deeply pervasive and insidious culture? everything is so sanitised and unbelievable that i actually think i'm homophobic now, i would be homophobic too if my options for king of Canada was EDWARD OR BILLY.
ok and those are only my issues with the ideology with the book, we haven't even gotten into the plot issues. I cannot stress this enough: this book is 450 pages of everybody gaslighting Billy. ALL ANYONE DOES IS LIE TO THAT BOY. if you were looking for parent trap hijinks from long lost twins, you are not going to find that here because Edward spends 75% of the book hating and sabotaging Billy. he only mostly stops doing this after one 30 minute conversation with him where he's like "hey maybe my brother isn't such a bad person even though he's never done anything bad to me on purpose". it's insane how many decisions characters make in this book because they have one quick conversation with someone that makes them realise that they've misjudged them all along. basically, every plot twist in this book is just a revelation that yet another person has lied to Billy. WHICH IS INSANE. GET A NEW SCHTICK.
The characters are flat, the plot makes no sense, things just happen. it's like one of those Wattpad novels that get updated every week based on what the readers want in the comments, ZERO foresight for future book events. we just meander from one plot point to another. oh my god, and don't even get me started on Sofia. clearly she was supposed to be a complex villain/anti-hero? but that is NOT what happened. edward flips so quickly back and forth between "she's my nemesis" to "i feel so horrible about lying to my friend :(" and you canNOT have it both ways. you either feel bad about deliberately deceiving her into thinking you are actually dating, or you tell her that you're fake dating and she remains your nemesis/necessary ally. instead you have this weird middle ground where edward tells sofia that they're fake dating, sofia falls for him for real (WHY? HE SUCKS??), and then when edward tells her he's gay she accuses him of stringing her along. why would she EVER do that??? she's supposed to be smart??? she also never faces any consequences for sending billy's personal info to the tabloids which is a HUGE breach of trust and would actually be a massive fucking scandal, and instead it's just "sorry i did that, i was jealous" and "no worries i forgive you." sorry WHAT?
i can't keep going on about this, we'll be here all day bc there was nothing good or redeeming about this book at all. go read gretal's review, it's much more well-thought out and coherent than this was.
in conclusion: this book made me sad, it made me homophobic, it made me wish i had read literally anything else.