Reading: Royals by Rachel Hawkins

Meet Daisy Winters. She’s an offbeat sixteen-year-old Floridian with mermaid-red hair; a part time job at a bootleg Walmart, and a perfect older sister who’s nearly engaged to the Crown Prince of Scotland. Daisy has no desire to live in the spotlight, but relentless tabloid attention forces her to join Ellie at the relative seclusion of the castle across the pond.

While the dashing young Miles has been appointed to teach Daisy the ropes of being regal, the prince’s roguish younger brother kicks up scandal wherever he goes, and tries his best to take Daisy along for the ride. The crown–and the intriguing Miles–might be trying to make Daisy into a lady . . . but Daisy may just rewrite the royal rulebook to suit herself.

The Book Hangover

I’m not going to lie. I’ve been in a book slump since binge reading the Fox and O’Hare series. I couldn’t kick it. I’ve reread books, but nothing new grabbed my interest.

So when Royals by Rachel Hawkins crossed my path and piqued my interest, I took a serious interest because I needed something to kick my butt out of rereading The Heist by Janet Evanovich for the third time, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell for the fourth time, and binge reading the Twilight Saga for the third time. I needed this.

Imagine my surprise when fifty pages I find myself peeved at Eleanor Winters! Consider this your spoilers warning because this will be a rant. How long, I have no idea but I’m worked up and I need to get it off my chest if I’m ever going to continue.

First things first. I completely, 100% understand that this is a story and that early in the book the author sets the scene for what’s to come so this may totally turn. That this is where the problems start for the protagonist and that the rest of the book will be he or she rallying to their story arch and end on the ending everyone cheers for. But at this moment, I’m so irritated at Daisy’s older sister that I need to take a step back and air my issues so I can see Daisy’s high point, you know?

Begin Rant Session!

My problem lies in the fact that Ellie seems totally oblivious to Daisy’s feelings. I get she’s the older sister and dating a prince is no cake-walk and that she has tons of problems on her own, but I can totally relate to Daisy’s frustration. Always being second or an afterthought is something I can relate to and completely understand. Not only is she the younger sister, but her needs seem so important and insignificant when compared to her older sister that Daisy herself understands why she’s always second. But that doesn’t make it unimportant. It’s important to her. The fact that her sister’s engagement and impending marriage intrudes on her life just as much, if not more since Daisy has no choice because Eleanor is choosing to marry a future king, and this is something I wish Eleanor would be more sensitive about.

Again, I get that marrying the future king of a foreign country comes with bigger problems than being only a sister to the queen-bride-to-be, but Eleanor is going in with her eyes open. She knows marrying a future king is a lot of work on her part, but she’s willing to take that chance because she loves her prince. Daisy doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it yet she forced to deal with it because Eleanor is in love and getting married to royalty. Then she pulls her “don’t do this” and “be reasonable” spiel when Daisy panics or voices her discomfort and concerns.

Sighs. Which is why I chose to read this book

This rant sure has helped. While I am frustrated, I chose this book because it talks about the forgotten ones or the less important ones as far as these types of things tend to go. The public gets wrapped up in the fairy tale and the ones forced into this world are not really given a second thought. Yet they have to smile and behave in certain ways just because they’re related or associated with the “inner circle.” Since I can remember, I’ve always wondered about people like Daisy so I’m curious to see what happens. Finally, there’s a story whose main focus is on the sister of the princess-to-be instead of the princess-to-be. And it starts off just how it should, with Daisy’s feelings being ignored.

Hopefully, all this mood-setting pays off. I’m counting on you Ms. Hawkins to pull this off! 🙂