Paper Princess (The Royals, #1)

Paper Princess by Erin Watt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What. Happened.

Did I actually just read that?

This book is like going on a bad date with pretty eye candy. You know you should call it off halfway through dinner, but you just can’t look away long enough to gather your brain to do it.





I feel almost the same way about this book as I do about the show, The Bachelor. I hate that I love it. I also love how much I hate it.

I seriously can’t believe I wasted all that time reading this story, and yet I immediately picked up book two like a starving person grabbing for a single crust of bread. Feed me, Seymore! Feed me!

This book is a midlife crisis in progress and probably the reason why half of Goodreads now needs therapy. I’m up, then I’m down. I’m hot, then I’m cold. I’m in, then I’m out. It’s a GD effing pop song.





It’s like everything I never needed, and something I’ve always wanted, except when I don’t want it at all, which feels like most of the time, until suddenly I desperately want it all again.





The only thing that makes less sense than this review is this book, and yet there are moments when it feels like it’s ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and I’m so all in I can’t even fathom turning away. Then I turn away and take a deep breath of normalcy, only to seconds later start whisper singing Total Eclipse of the Heart while clutching this book to my chest (Turn around) and ugly crying (every now and then I fall apart).

This is a mess.

(Once upon a time I was falling in love)

But I kind of want to lay down inside the mess until it swallows me up and I can live inside it.

(Now I'm only falling apart)

This book has turned me into a mess. This is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for the critical, intellectual reader. You’re going to have to just take what comes at you and try to hold on with this one, while squashing down judgment, and releasing reality to the wind.

Goodbye, expectations of some kind or princess or royalty story. Hello strippers and machismo and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, even though this story isn’t even set in Vegas.

I feel I have no other choice here but to do some crazy combination of fangirl and hater math to determine a score for this Beautiful Disaster:

Inner Hopeless Romantic Says: 5 stars with heart eyes

(Turn around)

Logical Head Says: 1 Star and a tragic head shake

(Turn around, bright eyes)

Emotions Say: *%&^$#*&*

(Every now and then I fall apart)

Inner-Drama Queen Says: 10 stars

(And I need you now tonight)

Average score: 4 of the weirdest and most uncertain stars I’ve ever awarded

(And I need you more than ever)

Except when I don’t need you. Because, just no, on so many levels, for so many reasons, it’s a no. No, no no. Except when I forget that it’s a no and I’m all yes again. Yes, yes, yes!




PS: The narration is good. This book is narrated by Angela Goethals. She has a nice flair for the dramatic.