Reviewed by girlinthepages on
If you've hung around my blog for a while, you probably know that contemporary books with a focus on royalty are my favorites. From The Princess Diaries to The Royal We, I'll read pretty much anything with a the premise of modern day royals. When I found out that American Royals was also going to contain an alternate history version of America, one where we had become a monarchy with good old King George Washington, I was so excited! The cover was also stunning and I loved how under the dust jacket the hardcover was even red, white and blue. Suffice to say I was REALLY looking forward to reading this one.
The story itself follows four POV characters: Beatrice, heir to the throne of America, Samantha, her rebellious little sister, Daphne, Prince Jefferson's on/off again social climbing girlfriend, and Nina, Samantha's best friend who is a "commoner" and who's mother works for the government. While I appreciated the inclusion of various female narrators of different backgrounds, I just wasn't very interested in all of them. Beatrice's POV was the most intriguing because she was the heir (and set to be the first Queen inheriting the throne) and Daphne's was interesting due to her ruthlessness in pursuing marriage with Jefferson, but Samantha's narrative came off feeling very petty and immature and Nina just bored me. Their stories all wove together, however I would have rather seen a POV from Jefferson, or the King or Queen to break things up. This book also read very YA to me, which is not a bad thing (I know I am not the target audience) but many of the plot points were very predictable and lacked originality Such as the heir who doesn't want to marry an aristocrat, the spare who thinks her sibling has it so great and that she is overlooked, the "I never asked for this" internal monologue from almost every character, etc. There was also a love triangle/quadrangle (or a few, I suppose) that were none too original and took up most of the plot of the book, which wasn't exactly what I was expecting (I was hoping for more political intrigue, I guess).
There was also a lot less alternate history than I was expecting. I was so excited whenever a nugget would be tossed out (such as how the Revere Guard was formed, what America's relations are like now with other countries, how the Royal family refuses to drink tea- LOL) but I still had SO many questions about the world building, especially when it came to how the country was divided up, because there were Dukes of cities (like Boston) but also states (like Texas) and I couldn't really get a grasp on the structure of the aristocracy. I appreciate that the author didn't info-dump but I'm hoping in the next book we'll get more alternate history facts!
Overall: I enjoyed American Royals for what it was to me- a overly dramatic YA novel with a fun alternate history setting that put too much focus on romance and main characters that could have been fleshed out more. I'll definitely be reading the sequel and hoping it gives the series more spice and intrigue as this book ended on quite the cliffhanger, but I really do hope we see some more plot development outside the various love triangles.
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Reading updates
- Started reading
- 31 March, 2020: Finished reading
- 31 March, 2020: Reviewed