Book Review: Royals

I’m not sure who recommended Royals to me, I’m reading so many book review sites now. But the library notified me that my hold number had come up, so I picked it up and prepared to hate it. LOL.

Basic Summary (Courtesy of Goodreads):

Meet Daisy Winters. She’s an offbeat sixteen-year-old Floridian with mermaid-red hair; a part time job at a bootleg Walmart, and a perfect older sister who’s nearly engaged to the Crown Prince of Scotland. Daisy has no desire to live in the spotlight, but relentless tabloid attention forces her to join Ellie at the relative seclusion of the castle across the pond.

While the dashing young Miles has been appointed to teach Daisy the ropes of being regal, the prince’s roguish younger brother kicks up scandal wherever he goes, and tries his best to take Daisy along for the ride. The crown–and the intriguing Miles–might be trying to make Daisy into a lady . . . but Daisy may just rewrite the royal rulebook to suit herself.

My Thoughts:

That description does not do the book justice at all. I was prepared to make fun of it. Barring that I was prepared to read it just so I could complain about the tripe that gets published these days. Ha-ha, the joke is on me. I loved it.

Daisy is the rare teenager who knows herself, knows her limits, knows her strengths, and just what she is willing to do. She talks a lot to herself about how she hasn’t found her “thing” yet but that seems so unimportant compared to what she does know about herself. This book is an amusing romp of a strong woman refusing to lower her standards – very Jane Austen.

As a side note, this book is so flippin’ funny I actually woke my hubs several times when I was trying to quietly read it late at night with a book light, because my laughter was so loud. Oops.

Well done Rachel Hawkins, you created a fabulous Jane Austen pastiche without screwing it up. Whether that was your intent or not, you did Jane proud. I’ll have to see what else you’ve written and take a gander at that.