A friend of mine, whenever she encounters a problem, reminds herself of the Scale of Aleppo, wherein she compares her misfortunes to those of the people trapped in the vicious civil war in Syria. Husband running late? Barely a one on the Scale of Aleppo. Boss being an asshole? A three, at most. It’s an admirable strategy. It’s also something which, I feel, it would behoove the protagonists of The Royal We to try. Twenty year old Rebecca Porter, on a gap year from studying […]
The First Half is Great
I wanted to like this more than I did. It gets three stars because the front half is amazing. I’ll talk about what I didn’t like in the spoiler section. I’ve had this on my kindle for a long time, but there was always something I wanted to read more. In response to Harry and Megan’s engagement, people started bringing this book up again and I thought it would be a fun, light read. An American, Rebecca “Bex” Porter decides to do a semester abroad […]
An American in Oxford
I found The Royal We excessively charming, for all that it is — as others have mentioned — Will and Kate Cambridge fanfiction. Every major player in their IRL romance has a direct analog here as far as I can tell (though I don’t truly consider myself an expert) and though our protagonist, Bex, is American, she still comes from money as Kate Middleton did. All of the major events in their romance are covered here, and, cover illustrations aside, even the physical descriptions of […]
A royal romance
Ok, I admit I did not have super high expectations for this one. I love the Fug Girls — their blog, which I’ve been reading for a freaking decade, cracks me up — but I found Spoiled and Messy (their two other YA novels) to be fun, but vapid (and in the case of Messy, occasionally annoying). The Royal We seems aimed at a more adult audience, and while it has its faults, I also think it’s probably the best book these two ladies have produced so far. “Well. You never have to […]