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Friday, March 25, 2016

Royally Lost by Angie Stanton

 

Synopsis:
Dragged on a family trip to Europe’s ancient cities, Becca wants nothing more than to go home. Trapped with her emotionally distant father, over-eager stepmother, and a brother who only wants to hook up with European hotties, Becca is miserable. That is until she meets Nikolai, a guy as mysterious as he is handsome. And she unknowingly finds herself with a runaway prince.

Nikolai has everything a guy could ask for-he's crown prince, heir to the throne, and girls adore him. But the one thing he doesn't have...is freedom. Staging a coup, he flees his kingdom and goes undercover on his own European tour.

When Nikolai and Becca meet, it’s their differences that draw them together. Sparks fly as they share a whirlwind of adventures, all the while dodging his royal guard. But Becca's family vacation ends in a matter of days. Will Nikolai and Becca be forced to say goodbye forever, will his destiny catch up to him, or will they change history forever?


Review:
To start off, I would like to thank JC for all of her blogging, while I was being lazy in the corner. Now onto the review!

I read this book on recommendation from a post-it note at the library. There was this wall filled with post it notes and book reviews. This is not the kind of book I would usually read, but maybe JC would. I read a couple of reviews and decided to pick up Royally Lost thinking it was going to be a cutesy novel where a prince falls in love with commoner girl. And that's what I got.

Royally Lost ended up being very predictable with characters that seemed just a little too perfect. A lot of the book was comprised of complaining about parents and insulting history. But this book wasn't bad and was an enjoyable, light read. Here's what bugged me throughout the book:

Perfect love interest
Nikolai was very very perfect. He just didn't have a perfect life. Although he was nice and charming, he didn't really do a lot wrong other than the running away from home thing.
 * spoiler warning *
However, Nikolai's parents eventually change their ways because they were wrong not Nikolai. There wasn't a lot of depth in the characters.

Insta-love
I don't like insta-love because it's usually a relationship first established because of a physical attraction rather than personality. Even though people do actually fall in love at first sight, it doesn't make for much of a compelling story. It's usually engaging to read about a couple of people who have problems and maybe don't connect at first. Perfect couples are nice, but not fun to read about.

Becca insulting history
The author clearly did research about European history, which I appreciate and respect. But Becca though. She had no respect towards history and just complained about how old everything was. It just made her seem rather ignorant and disrespectful. I was really hoping she would develop a little bit and learn to respect those who helped establish the foundations for the country she was in.

I was going to write something about how I liked the way the author researched about Mondovia, but it's not a real place.

Cliche stepmom situation
Father marries other woman, children mad because stepmom is not not real mom. I'm fine with reading about this trope if it's changed a little, unfortunately it was very predictable.

Becca's hostile treatment of Vicky made me not really like her character. All Vicky wanted to do was bring their family closer together, but Becca seemed unwilling to give Vicky a chance. (Admittedly, Becca's attitude was understandable, but still)

*spoiler warning*

 The ending was very picture perfect, and there was no moral to the story.
 Run away and lie to your parents, because you'll end up with the love of your life and your parents will change tradition for you and everything will be happy.
 I like picture perfect endings when the characters really deserve it, but most events in this book seemed too convenient and their problem were rich people problems.

 Overall, I would give the book 6 out of 10 stars. If you're looking for a cutesy romance that you may be able to read in one sitting.

Thank you for reading,
Kalee

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