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My Review:Title: Just One of the Royals
Author: Leah Rooper, Kate Rooper
Series: The Chicago Falcons #2
Published by: Entangled: Crush
Release Date: June 4th 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 197
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports Romance, Young Adult
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:
Blurb:Star hockey player Daniel Sacachelli wants only two things: 1) for the Falconsto win next season, and 2) for his secret — the fact he’s actually the prince of Eldonia — to never make its way to Chicago. But if Daniel keeps avoiding his crown, their family will lose their kingdom forever.
Madison Myong can’t believe that her will-they-or-won’t-they best friend Daniel isreally a prince! He’s always seemed more rebel than royal. But now, he needs to clean up his image, fast. Posing as his long-time girlfriend, Madison accompanies him back to Eldonia, intending to give Daniel a makeover fit for a king.
Only, the more royal Daniel becomes, the more Madison misses her best friend. And if she does her job right, she’ll lose him forever...
I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
3 stars — OK. So. Hmmm… I adored the first book in this series, so I was excited to see more. But…while this one wasn’t bad, it was just missing something. The tropes in this story are friends to lovers and fake relationship, and I didn’t always understand their friendship, and I DEFINITELY didn’t understand the need for the fake relationship. So I didn’t get what I wanted from those tropes, you know?
Daniel could be really adorable, but I felt like there were two parts to him…and I guess I never really understood all of the bad boy stuff. Like was he putting on that persona because he was trying to live up to the bastard prince part? That would make sense, but honestly it wasn’t super clear. And it really didn’t make as much sense considering how sweet he was to his Ma, his sister, and Madison. I guess I didn’t see the point, especially if he was crushing on Madison the whole time. What’s the point in getting together with all those other girls? It wasn’t terribly endearing.
Madison could be really sweet as well, but she also got a bit annoying at times. I never really got into her passion for acting, b/c we didn’t get to see it…like at all. We were just told about it. And it really didn’t end up making sense with the fake relationship, I guess I just didn’t see it come into play. And of the two stories, Madison’s definitely felt like the one that fell by the wayside.
Neither of their stories felt all that concrete, and I didn’t feel a lot of development for either character either. At the end there was a bit, but it felt rushed by that point.
As for the two of them together, their chemistry was okay…but nothing mind-blowing. It certainly didn’t give me as many tummy butterflies as I was expecting. It really felt like their relationship wasn’t that well developed as a friendship at the start of the book, and so I didn’t really feel the progress from that to more. And in this case the back and forth got a bit tiring. It’s common in friends to lovers, but I just wasn’t invested and it didn’t feel like it was building up to something.
Like I said at the start, the whole fake relationship didn’t really make sense. Why was it even necessary? It never really came into play in the end. Daniel having an “honor roll” girlfriend did NOTHING to boost his status. Her role wouldn’t have changed a bit if she’d come as his best friend. So that was disappointing.
There were other little things that contributed to the okay-ness. I found some of their reactions too over the top…like the spaghetti sauce thing. It made it feel unrealistic. I also saw the twist coming from a mile away, and honestly I was disappointed that no one else saw it until the end.
The highlight for me in this book were the antics of the Falcons. It was a bit unbelievable at times, but I loved how they were there for each other. And I enjoyed the hockey bits — it felt like a true sports romance.
So yeah. In the end it felt like they tried to put too many elements into the story, and as a result didn’t really succeed at any of them. Too bad. I’ll still look forward to reading Tyler’s story, but I sincerely hope it’s more focused.
I hate too much okay-ness in a book!