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A review by tuai
The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich
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!!
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!