The Royal We Book Review

The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

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Blurb:

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 ever herself - will have been for nothing.

Review by Brittany:

I received a free copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway, and I'm so happy that I did. This book was laugh-out-loud funny all the way through, often heart-warming, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My favorite thing about this book is that Nick and Box's relationship feels real. A book about royalty would be easy to turn into a perfect, adorable little fairy tale, but these authors didn't do that. instead, they built an actual relationship between two people, with the added complication of Nick being headed for the throne. The relationship often got rocky, and both Bex and Nick made some bad choices throughout. Their relationship is the core of the book, and it was done beautifully.

I also loved the banter throughout the book. The way Nick and Bex interact is just one way in which the relationship feels real, but it was my favorite part. They are snarky and tease each other, and they are both often kind of goofy. They interact in the same way with their friends, sharing easy banter and quips between each other.

Overall, I loved this book. This is one of my favorite examples of a book that builds a relationship. I thought it was very well done.

Notable quotes:

There's no denying it, no revisiting it, no editing my behavior into something more innocent.

That he'd realized this, months beyond the point where it could have saved us, was something I'd rather not have known.

I saw a childlike yearning to have his mother back juxtaposed with the achingly adult knowledge that this wish would never come true.

I don't know why it takes something monumentally destructive to remind you what you want to save.

"I don't care who started it, or who slept with what, or whatever went on with you kids, but shit happens and when it's people who matter, we deal with it."