Book Review: The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

"The Royal We" by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
First published in 2015
452 pages
My rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Short Of It:
I enjoyed this book so much more than I anticipated!

The Long Of It:
Going into "The Royal We," I expected a fluffy, light chick-lit romance about a girl and her prince charming -- and boy, did I underestimate this novel.

This is indeed a love story between a regular-ish American girl, Bex, and Nick, second in line to inherit the British throne, but it's also a story about family and sibling relationships, identity, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, making mistakes and trying to fix them. And it's about the ridiculous amount of scrutiny famous people are under -- in the case of the royal family, simply by birth.

It's also funny, and heartfelt, and just an all-around charming and engrossing read. This is due in large part to Bex, an utterly likable main character, even when she's screwing up horribly. She's witty, fun, smart, confident and self-aware, and she hardly thinks twice about living a few doors down from the prince when she heads to Oxford University on an exchange program. Their first few encounters are hilariously awkward, and it's not quite love at first sight, but eventually their friendship becomes more. And that's when the seemingly endless obstacles begin, not least of which is that the royal family certainly never intended for Nick to marry an American from a middle-class family.

I was fascinated by all the behind-the-scenes imaginings of royal life, and the immense amount of structure and planning and minutiae that goes into everything, as well as the absolutely frenetic -- and not always kind -- media obsession with the royals and those around them. I also fell in love with Bex and Nick's close-knit group of friends, as well as Bex's twin sister and most especially Nick's insanely charming younger brother Freddie. While there's much more depth to the book than I anticipated, it's still overall a very quick and easy read, and I found it to be totally delightful.

However, maybe because I don't really follow news about the royal family, I didn't realize it's essentially a fictionalized version of William and Kate's relationship -- and while I do admire the way the authors filled in all the blanks in this framework, I docked my rating a tad after Googling Kate Middleton and realizing just how much of the book is pulled from her actual life. I did enjoy the similarities to the real-life royals, especially red-haired, mischievous Freddie and the stern but surprisingly spunky "Queen Eleanor," but I was surprised to find everything from the way she met her prince right down to Bex's charity work and her wedding dress were the same as Kate's.

Not that that's a bad thing, it's just a wee bit less creative than I had originally thought. Too, so much of the novel is about lack of privacy and incessant hounding by the media, and it seemed a little weird to sympathize with Bex/Kate throughout, only to realize that this novel that I've so enjoyed attempts to make an educated guess into Kate's private life. At least it was a flattering portrayal -- as mentioned, I absolutely loved Bex (and Nick!).