My Week in Book Review: American Royals

American Royals by Katharine McGee

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America's first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling. Nobody cares about the spare except when she's breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn't care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her. And then there's Samantha's twin, Prince Jefferson. If he'd been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.

Spoilers!

First of all, I liked this book! I felt like the characters were sharp and distinct and that the romances were fun. I will say that I don’t know if the cover copy above is a completely apt description. Beatrice and Samantha’s paragraphs were fine, but the one about Jefferson—he doesn’t have a point of view in the book, and I’d say only one girl is “vying to capture his heart.” The other one loves him, but is very unsure about her place in his world and spends more of the book pushing him away than fighting for, let alone over, him. That’s a small thing, but that it might mislead some readers’ expectations.

The main theme of this book, which carried through all four character points of view, was how being a royal affects your life. For Beatrice, the future queen, it dictates all her choices and constrains her to sacrifice anything that doesn’t line up with it. For Samantha, the spare, it’s a source of insecurity, of never measuring up or being able to do things well enough. For Nina, Jeff’s girlfriend, it’s something to fear because it takes away your anonymity and your ability to be yourself. For Daphne, Jeff’s ex-girlfriend, it’s a goal that is attainable with enough work and the right strategy. All of these four girls’ themes rotate around what it means to be royal, what it means to not be royal, and what sacrifices royalty is worth.

One thing that made this book distinctive to me is that each of the four girls had an obvious romantic interest, even though none of them permanently got together in this book. We’ve got Beatrice and Conner, Nina and Jeff, Samantha and Teddy, Daphne and Ethan. The book ends on a cliff-hanger, and I’m very interested to see if the clearly meant-to-be couples in the first book actually all end up together in the second. On the one hand, that seems too clean—shouldn’t relationships be muddy, with someone ending up alone, someone dealing with a messy love triangle, etc.? But on the other hand, it’s refreshing to know exactly whom to root for rather than feeling conflicted between the best friend and the tortured bad boy (especially because the girl always takes the tortured bad boy—why). I like that the characters all have believable barriers keeping them apart, but yet I know that they all belong together. The mystery (thus far) isn’t in seeing who will end up with whom so much as how they’ll break down the barriers. Beatrice’s barrier is that she can’t marry a commoner. Nina’s barrier is that she doesn’t want the public life that comes with dating Jeff. Samantha’s barrier is that Teddy is engaged to her sister. And Daphne’s barrier is that she’s trained herself to want a crown more than someone who actually loves her.

Last thing is I wanted to address some of the reviews I saw on Goodreads that compared American Royals to The Royal We and complained that it didn’t measure up. My take is these two books are trying to do different things. The Royal We, another alternate timeline romance in which the prince of England and an American commoner get together, is adult fiction that only has one viewpoint and is several hundred pages. It has time to dive into the years-long history of Nick and Bex’s relationship and the strain that dating a royal entails for Bex, a commoner (and a foreigner). Scandal also plays a large role throughout that book.

By contrast, American Royals is young adult fiction, has four points of view, and is average length. The main focus of the book is each girl’s relationship—why she wants it and why it isn’t working—and because there are four, none can go into the depth that The Royal We does. Scandal threatens in American Royals, but never strikes (waiting for that in book 2—I think it may be coming there). Different premises aside, I would say the vibe of American Royals is more similar to The Selection than to The Royal We. And all that to say that I like both books, but they’re very different and you can’t go into one expecting it to be like the other just because there’s gossip, romance, and royalty in both.

I liked this book, but it won’t be for everyone. My main enjoyment came from seeing relationships play out in their juicy, glitzy glory. And relationships with a crown throw in to up the stakes? Yes, please.