I have been a fan of Heather and Jessica's blog, Go Fug Yourself, for many years so, when they decided to imagine what it would be like for a commoner to marry into a royal family, I knew I had to check it out. The Royal We is obviously inspired by the much-publicized relationship between the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but the Fug Girls make the story their own and readers are left with an entertaining, surprisingly thought-provoking look into the life in the spotlight.
The narrator of The Royal We is Bex Porter, an American college student who heads to Oxford for a semester abroad. While there, she befriends one of the heirs to the British throne, Prince Nicholas, and eventually that friendship turns into something more. The book covers almost ten years of Bex and Nick's life together and apart. It is much more than a romance due to the fact that it shows that there is more to happiness than fancy clothes, exotic vacations, and a huge wedding. Happily ever after is a difficult thing to achieve and Bex and Nick have to go through major trials to find it.
I adored both Bex and Nick. Bex is the last person one would think of as the girlfriend of a prince due to her laid-back personality, but she captures Nick's attention with her lust for life and snarky sense of humor. For his part, Nick is much more than a Prince Charming-like stereotype. He is a genuinely nice guy who cares about his friends and his family, but he also has trust issues and is not the best at communication. Bex and Nick both have to grow a lot in this book and I appreciated how flawed they were which made them much more relatable.
There are other relationships in this book besides the obvious one between Bex and Nick. Readers are also given tons of information about their college friends with my personal favorite being Bex's best friend, Cilla, who is both protective of Bex and willing to call her out. Friendship is a very important component of The Royal We which I wasn't really expecting.
I also have to mention to wonderfully developed sibling portrayals. Bex is a twin and her sister, Lacey, is a huge part of her life. They have some issues to go through especially in relation to the media attention that is inevitable once Bex and Nick's relationship goes public. But, what I loved the most about them was their connection and that, in the end, they were there for one another. And then there's Nick's playboy younger brother, Freddie, who almost steals the entire book. I loved his devil-may-care persona that hides someone who has spent much of his life pushed to the side by his family and the rest of the country.
In conclusion, I found The Royal We to be a wonderful look at what it might be like to fall in love with a prince in today's society. There is much more than what the fairy tales showed us and I appreciated the way that the authors balanced the good and the bad. Love is important enough to sacrifice many things, but this book makes the reader think about whether it really is worth it in the end. I highly recommend this for fans of the Fug Girls or anyone who has ever dreamed of finding a prince (or princess) of their very own.
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