Title: Paper Princess, Broken Prince, Twisted Palace (The Royals)
Author: Erin Watt
Publisher: Everafter Romance
Release Date:  2016
Standalone/Series: Trilogy
Genre: New Adult – Contemporary – Romance

Goodreads link

My rating:

for Paper Princess
for Broken Prince
for Twisted Palace

What it’s about:

From strip clubs and truck stops to southern coast mansions and prep schools, one girl tries to stay true to herself.

These Royals will ruin you…

Ella Harper is a survivor—a pragmatic optimist. She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone.

Until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal boy is more magnetic than the last, but none as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from.

Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals.

He might be right.

Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees.

MY THOUGHTS (spoiler-free)

Well, I just binge-read this entire series in about 4 days and I was NOT expecting that! I would like to share my thoughts, but I honestly didn’t feel like I had enough thoughts to warrant three separate reviews. So I thought I’d try something new instead and just do a short spoiler-free series review using The O.C. gifs! Are you excited? Because I am! Let’s do this.

THE O.C. COMPARISONS

Well, if I’m pulling out The O.C. gifs, it must be for a reason right? This series reads like a TV show, and though it has been compared to both Gossip Girl and Cruel Intentions, part of why I ended up liking this book series so much is because it reminded me a lot of The O.C. I mean, we have the troubled young kid, down on their luck, who is being ‘adopted’ into a super rich family. Troubled kid needs to adapt to the lifestyles of the rich and snobby. Drama ensues. I was half expecting one of the Royals to shout “Welcome to the O.C., b*tch!” every chapter. Except, this did not take place there. But those are details.

MAJOR DRAMA

This series is super addictive, fast-paced and filled with dramatic cliffhangers, which is something I both loved and hated about it. I loved it because once I started, I. COULD. NOT. STOP. READING! The need to keep turning to pages, to find out what happened, was undeniable. So if you’re looking for a quick read that may help you get out of a reading slump, this may be a great choice.

However, all the drama is also my biggest gripe about the series. Paper Princess is definitely my favorite, because it has the most plot and character development. Broken Prince and Twisted Palace rely more on drama and shocking revelations to keep going and have very little actual character development. It’s definitely addictive, but I could have used a little less soap opera.

ELLA: SUPER INDEPENDANT GIRL IN NEED OF LOVING FAMILY

Ella was a very likeable main character. She’s been through a lot and had to grow up very quickly and it shows. She’s definitely flawed and obviously has some issues she’s still working through, but she was such a strong and mature character you could definitely root for. I loved her POV. I loved seeing this crazy world and these snobby rich kids from her perspective. Paper Princess was entirely from her POV and it was my favorite. As of Broken Prince, we get some chapters from Reed’s POV and unfortunately I did not like those as much.

REED: DRAMA KING

Reed. I’m not sure how I feel about Reed. I hated him at first and ended up really liking him. But I’m conflicted about the transition. I felt like it went a bit too quickly – they could have dragged out his character development just a bit longer to make it more realistic. It doesn’t help that this entire series takes place in about 4 months. For the amount of change there was, I needed more time. Still, he really grew on me and I wasn’t expecting that.

IS THIS CONSIDERED YA OR NA?

Technically, this is considered Young Adult because of the age of the main characters. But all the sexy times DEFINITELY put this in New Adult territory. Only downside: sometimes the sexy times slowed down the plot. It was like: major drama – violence – murder -sex – sex – sex – major drama… Really guys, that’s what you’re thinking about?

FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS FTW!

Bonus points for female friendships! I loved the friendship between Ella and Val. They were super supportive of eachother and I just loved their scenes together. It was great to see Ella find someone who was a genuinely nice person, someone who had her back and vice versa.

OH, BROTHER.

Another reason to love this series? The Royals. Reed’s obviously the one getting the biggest spotlight here, but I LOVED Ella’s relationship with the other brothers just as much, if not more. It’s hard to pick a favorite. There’s Gideon, the oldest and most mysterious brother. Easton, the troubled one with addiction issues. And the twins Sebastian and Sawyer, whose romantic relationships are both the most complicated and most stable of all Royals. I just wish we had gotten more from them. I believe there may be some more novels coming out focusing on them. And I’ll definitely read them, but I would have preferred more of them in this series. They are just so cute and I love them all <3

CALLUM: THE AWKWARD FATHER FIGURE

Of course when we are talking about the Royals, we can’t forget about Callum. Though he is just as flawed and troubled as his sons, I really loved his relationship with Ella. He went from being this awkward guy to a real father-figure and I was happy Ella had him in her life.

Antagonists galore!

Every good story needs an antagonist, right? Well, this series has plenty of them. We have the at-first-glance villains who end up not being so villainous. We have the absolute psychos who just seemed so nice. We have snobby bitches who are not what they seem. We have snobby bitches who are exactly what they seem. We have murderers. I mean, no shortage of villains or antagonists here!

in summary

Though it definitely has its’ flaws, I did end up really liking this series. The drama was a bit too over-the-top soap-opera for me, but it did make it REALLY addictive and hard to put down. (Also, I probably feel that way because I love my drama more of the fantasy variety. You know, prophecies and wars and ruin and dragons and assassin revenge plots. NOW THAT’S DRAMA!) Though I do wish some of the characters had been developed a bit more, most of them were super interesting. The Royal boys are definitely an unforgettable bunch and the family dynamic is the real highlight here.

So, this series in one gif: