This review is going to be very different than my usual outline mostly because I already read both of these books! The Royal We was a book that I picked up on a whim because I've been in a little reading slump since Riley Sager's The Final Girls. I've been trying to read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver but I really can't get into it right now, and I just think I'm not in the mood for it quite yet so I went on pure instinct and bought The Royal We by Heather Cocsk and Jessica Morgan. This is the first book in a series, and I honestly don't know if they meant for it to be a series since there is such a huge gap between releases. The Royal We were originally published back in 2015 and the newest book just came out this past week. This is so great because I finished reading the Royal We on the same day the second book came out and thank goodness since the first book leaves off on a big cliffhanger!
I got this as an eBook and I don't typically do reviews on them like I normally do because my eBooks I just start reading whenever I feel like it and a lot of time I drop them for something else or forget about it so I don't try to put a lot of effort in books that I don't know if I'm going to finish, physical books are harder for me to forget about when I get bored with them since they are right in my face. But I flew through The Royal We. The Royal We follows a girl named Bex who is an American and a twin that goes to Oxford for a study abroad semester. While she is there it turns out that part of the floor she is living on is the royal prince and his friends. She is instantly sucked into this world by becoming friends with his friends and even kind of dating one of his friends. Throughout the book, you know that she and the prince are getting married because the whole thing is written in her perspective and she is telling us what happened that led up to her wedding, which was a disaster. We are literally introduced to them at the wedding and everything is going wrong, but we don't know any specifics which is why she is telling us their whole story (AKA the first book). I loved this book I could not put it down. But that being said it was still problematic. There are things in this first book that I wish were done a little differently, such as the drama that happens between Bex, Nick, and Freddie. I really don't think the stuff that happened between Bex and Nick needed to go on for as long as it did. I love Bex but she is so annoying. The whole time we are learning about her as a person she was this fearless, tomboy who typically did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. But the version we got of her was completely different. She didn't like sticking up for herself, she let her sister walk all over her, and even Nick walked all over her. By the end of the book, after all of the twists and turns of it were finally over, we get to the wedding and it is pure chaos. I love how it ended because it left us with so many questions but at the same time, I hated it because of how Nick acted, how Clive's story went, and Bex. If Bex would've learned from her past at the beginning of the book all of this mess could've been avoided. I love Clive's storyline overall it was something that you kind of saw coming but at the same time it was shocking when it finally happened but I don't like how it just ended. So even with all of those critiques I personally still adored this book and couldn't get enough of it. It ended up being a 4-star read for me and the only reason it didn't get 5 stars is because of the drama. Yes, the drama was needed but I think it went overboard towards the end. I don't really think of this book as an instalove between Nick and Bex because the book spans multiple years and we watch the rollercoaster of them build. It was a bit of a chunker but since I was reading it as an eBook I didn't think of it being that big but it turns out the book is over 450 pages long! I didn't even really talk about this book on Instagram until after I finished it. I was literally so consumed by this book. I was staying up until 4-5 in the morning just reading. I was all consumed by it so of course, this book to me had to have a high rating.
Since the second book came out the same day that I finished the first one I instantly bought it and started reading it right away. I needed to know what happened between Nick and Bex now that they were married and the Duke and Duchess. Well, this one took a wrong turn a lot throughout the book. First off we start the book with Bex and Nick in disguise hiding from the world, living a life that they kind of secretly wish they had. They were even working in a bookstore in a tiny town. They start to decide it is time to go back when they get a frightening call that forces them back, which turns out to be a lie just to force their hand. But looking back now after reading the whole book I think that part really makes more sense now because they really come full circle and by the end of the book, Nick and Bex are both choosing this world where they are the Duke and Duchess versus Nick feeling like it is forced to be this thing that he was groomed to be his whole entire life.
The biggest thing I think that really aggravated me about this second book is that it kind of lost the thing I loved so much about it. We are still in Bex's perspective and she is telling us all about her life with Nick and learning to be this new thing but I missed the foreshadowing we had in the first book. In the first book, we started at this crazy scene at her wedding and the whole book is her explaining to us what got her to this point during the wedding and it oddly worked so well for that book. The whole time I couldn't figure out how they were even getting married since they weren't even together most of the book. But by the end of it, everything, for the most part, was all tied up well, for the most part. This book we kind of stay with Bex in current time, so I really missed her little comments she would make about how she wishes she would've done this instead of that or how things got better or worse. I just missed that foreshadowing aspect we had in the first book. So that was one big thing that I really missed.
Another thing I really hated in this book was the way Freddie was treated. If you read the first book you know the crazy stuff that went down with Freddie, which I think was totally unnecessary and wish was never there because I loved this friendship so much, I loved how close the three of them were, and the fact that Freddie was basically Nick's only family! So the things that went down with him was in my opinion totally unnecessary. By the end of the book, I get that Nick might still need some time to process what he learned at the wedding because that was a big bomb to get thrown at the moment and still have to go through with everything without really processing it. But to hold that grudge so long in the second book really drove me nuts. I was at the point where I screaming at him in real life that he needed to either get over it or let Bex figure out how to move on. I know being royal would make the whole divorce thing hard but if he loves her the way he kept claiming he did I don't think he would torture her the way he did, and especially not do this whole tic for tac thing that he did at New Years. I do like that he started going to counseling because he saw that this was something bad for him and his relationships and he wanted to work on himself. This is something that I never really see in books and really loved seeing it. But I hated that Freddie had to suffer so much through this book and I really hate how his storyline ended because I think he deserved more, and I really missed this trio!
One more thing I kind of wish we had more of was Clive. I know Clive became the villain in the story and I get that but I wanted him to have a storyline. I feel like he was just thrown in here and there because he was a reporter now. Most of the time you see Clive in this book it is through his articles which yeah they are awful but I wanted some revenge or something, instead, they would just happen sporadically through the story and everyone just ignored them. He had no repercussions for the things that he did and I think there should've been something. Joss is only mentioned like once and I would've liked to know what happened to her too. I just think these were missed opportunities. I know Clive isn't a big part of the second story but I feel like he should've had some part where we got to see a little revenge on him for the things he did. I honestly think I would've liked to see that more than everything they did with Freddie, and Freddie is one of my favorite characters! I just feel like he was done really wrong in this book. I know he and Nick wouldn't just become best friends again but I would've liked to watch them work through it and get back to that place versus Nick holding it over their heads all the time.
For the most part, this second book was still good, but not as good as the first. The first book to me was like 4-4.5 stars while this one is more like 3.5-4 stars. So I ended up giving this one 4-stars as well which is unusual since I typically go lower instead of higher. I just really loved these books and I haven't had an all-night binge read like this since the After series by Anna Todd so it was nice. I kind of describe these books as my guilty pleasure books because they weren't the greatest books of all time. They didn't do anything completely new and world-changing. They were just books about royals which I'm a sucker for books like this or even about celebrities, and I always have been. This all really fascinates me. I said the first book reminded me of Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, but that is only because it is set in the UK and we are dealing with the prince again. And it was a romance like a book. I think its more because my obsession with this series is the same that I have for McQuiston's book. I can reread it all day long I love it so much and I can't wait for the next one. With this series, I really hope there is a third one. I think it would be interesting to see how they move on now. By the end of the second book, we see a lot of changes in Nick and Bex and I think it would be interesting to see how they move on now that they both agree that even though this world is crazy it is that they are choosing to be apart of instead of Nick feeling he is forced to live it. I just hope there isn't a big-time between these two books, like real-time. Like I mentioned earlier the first book came out five years ago. I think the book itself can do a time jump because I would like to see how the princesses are doing but I still want the focus to be on Bex. I don't know I just haven't had enough of this world and I think one more book will do it for me.
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