The Royal We by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan
Series: Standalone
Published by Grand Central Publishing on April 7, 2015
Pages: 454
Source: the publisher
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"I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they'll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next."

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review:

First of all, I wanted to love this book with all of my heart, but I didn’t. Also, it took me a full month to read this, which tells me so much for a ChickLit book.

Here are the things I liked about The Royal We:

• I loved the time Nick and Bex spent at Oxford, their friendship, and their falling in love. Even though Bex is a normal American girl and Nick is a proper Prince, it felt swoony and fun. This is basically the beginning of the book.
• I loved ALL of the parts of the story that had anything to do with Bex learning to be “royal” – as an American, I could eat that stuff for breakfast. I was raised to have good manners, but these are manners in the way of Southern etiquette and tradition. The proper royal way is something entirely different and I was absolutely captivated, just like I knew I would be – just like I am in real life. These parts are in the end of the book.

 

Here are the things that I didn’t love about The Royal We:

• The entire middle of the book lagged. There are a few nuggets of story in there, and the actual story as a whole is great. But there is so much filler that probably at least one hundred pages of this book could GO AWAY and it would still be just fine. Do you know that this book is nearly 500 pages? This book is just too long for the type of story that it is.
• The secondary characters. For one: Lacey, twin sister to Bex, is a real piece of work. She is an attention-seeking, trouble-making problem. And while her actions furthered the plot in many instances (as in, she caused a crap-ton of problems for Bex), I was amazed at how Bex just glossed over her actions like everything was okay. I adore my sisters too, but when we have issues, we get that junk squared away-and that is without the world watching us!
• Lacey spends so much time in the spotlight with all of her issues and drama, and I wanted more of Nick. Actually, I think this book could have used more of his perspective throughout because at the end, when all is said and done, I don’t really know how he felt about certain things throughout the story – I feel like he didn’t get as much of a say.
• I hated everything about the time Nick and Bex spent apart. This sounds whiny I’m sure, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’m going to leave it at that. The things that happened during that time made me sad and am I the only person that sees a connection to the events that happened later in the book? Is anyone talking about this? Because, yes, there is a connection to the events that happened later in the book…
• …which I also didn’t love. Even though I love the characters that said event involved. Vague here, yes, so here is a link to this same review on my Goodreads profile with a tagged spoiler explanation if you want to see it:(view spoiler)
• BEX: Don’t lose yourself for anybody. Any. Body. Even if he is a prince! When you find the right guy, he will love you FOR WHO YOU ARE. The Bex that leapt onto the pages at the beginning of the book is not the Bex that ends the story. What is the opposite of character development? I cannot think of the word just now…

LOOK. I don’t mind fluffy stories. I don’t mind ChickLit stories. But I really, really love the royals and stories about royals, even if they aren’t based on real royals. So when I come across them and choose to read them, I guess I’m hard on them. This one just-the more I think about it, the more mixed up I feel.

This premise is one that I enjoy every time that I read it: American girl falls for a prince, they get married and then happily ever after. But I’ve read much better versions of this story than The Royal We. If this book is based on real people, okay. But I just can’t get with the way it went down because the end falls completely flat, without good resolution to some major events that occur near the end, and regardless of whether or not that is anywhere close to the real thing or not, it didn’t feel good to me to read that story and be left wondering if everything is okay with these people. (I considered dropping this book over and over but ultimately I wanted to see how everything ended. BAH.)

CLEARLY I’m in the minority here, so don’t take my word here, go read other 4-5 star reviews on Goodreads. These are my thoughts, they are how I feel, and I stand by them-even though it makes me sad to say so.

Audiobook Notes:

The audiobook format of The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan is published by Hachette Audio and is 17 hours and 54 minutes, Unabridged. Christine Lakin reads this audiobook and does a heck of a job. It is incredible and if you are considering reading this book, I would highly recommend that you do it via audiobook or at least add the audio to your print read. She has great humor to go along with the banter that is written (these characters are funny, if a bit poorly-behaved) and her accents are on-point. Loved this audio!