Katharine McGee

I have to start off by saying that this book exceeded my expectations. Whenever I begin reading a book by Katharine McGee, I usually expect an engrossing, overly dramatic, and intense story. This was all of that and more. We are taken back to the nineteenth century and lured into the lives of three young women in the royal Victorian world, all of whom have their own desires and dreams. They're living different lives, but they have one thing in common. All of them have restrictions and show more limitations placed on them. As women in the Victorian era, they have little to no rights, no matter their royal status. May of Teck is determined to become queen one day, Hélène d’Orléans wants to be allowed to break free and defy the rules, and Alix of Hesse is falling in love with a prince who isn't the one she's supposed to marry. McGee presents the Victorian world as realistically as possible. When I read this book, I had to remind myself that I was reading fiction. I'm really excited for the sequel! show less

"I don't know that I've ever read a book where ALL of the main characters were absolute trash pandas. There is a certain level of truth-withholding that anyone can endure for the sake of dramatic suspense leading up to big finale. But the entire plot was a Jenga stack of half-truths and veiled feelings that I'm surprised anyone could keep track of reality. And what makes it worse is they all clearly witnessed how those choices backfired to land them in a bigger mess, but they learn nothing show more and continue to make the same choices expecting different results. (Which could easily describe my predicament of continuously finding and selecting these sorts of books. I think my picker is broken.)
The premise of America having a royal family instead of a presidency seemed intriguing enough. But like most things Americans steal from Europe, we royally f'ed it up and said ""This is fine.""

Full disclosure: I looked up the ending to American Royals online to know if it would be worth my time to continue [don't @ me]. Reading the synopsis made me gasp, guffaw, and promptly return my audiobook loan to my library for the next person." show less

This was hilariously stupid. But the part of me that would binge Gossip Girl a decade ago had to keep going. Because this is 100% Gossip Girl 2118. High schoolers doing whatever they want with drugs, alcohol, and each other in a twisted bubble of classism.

Avery = Blair
Atlas = Chuck
Leda = Serena
Cord = Nate
Rylin = Vanessa
Watt (+ Nadia) = Dan (+ Gossip Girl)
Eris = just an heiress

And yes, while there’s pseudo-incest that caught me off guard super early on… the likes of Game of Thrones has show more reset the threshold of tolerance. Unfortunately.

What was most jarring to me, as a Floridian, was that a club was named Pulse. This book came out 2 months after the Pulse shooting in Orlando. I winced a little every time it was mentioned.

Bring on Book 2! show less

The only thing this book really succeeded in was reaffirming why I hate snobby people and their ceaseless contrivances. If you like Gossip Girl, reality TV, and don't mind fake-politeness, then you'll probably really like this. I, however, really didn't.

This is a science fiction romantic mess about the most convoluted love dodecahedron you've ever heard of. Here's a brief overview:

Person A is in love with person B, who is flirting with person C. Person A and C are best friends. Person D is show more friends with person A and C, and was in a relationship with person E. Person E is also in a relationship with person F, who's dating person G. Person H is in love with person A, and was hired by person C to spy on person B. Persons A, C, D, F, and H are all main characters.

And that's not even the end of it. It goes on and on and on and on and I hated it.

Oh, and there's pseudo-incest, if you're into that kinda thing. It's honestly not very interesting and doesn't really make any sense, but hey, McGee needed maximum drama, and what's more dramatic than two adopted siblings pining after each other?

Honestly, I only liked one character and she freaking dies at the end, so I'm definitely not going to finish this series. show less