Book: "Paper Princess"
Series: The Royals
Author: Erin Watt
Pages: 370
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.
Hello Angels!
I’ve finally read this book! Now you must think by now that I am crazy and obsessed with all those books I’ve been reading. Well, what can I say - I love them all. Plus, I’ve never said that I’m not a bookworm. Because I am.
I cannot lie to you, I bought the series because I thought that they would remind me of “The Selection” series by Kiera Cass. And they did.
The book starts with a very interesting and even shocking opening. Meet Ella Harper - a girl that have to face all her troubles that life brings to her all alone at such a young age - only sixteen years old. Ella has a huge sense of humor and she is very sarcastic - typical teenager. After the death of her mother Ella has to live on her own. Well, her job is not so prestigious either - she is a stripper. It’s not much, however Ella is used to it. After the death of her mother, Ella doesn’t only take her ID, she takes her profession as well.
Ella managed to find this so prestigious job and now she is moving to another school. Her only dream is to graduate high school, then to get in to college and to find a decent five to nine job that would bring food to the table and she would not have to live this life anymore. So she would not have to live in her mother’s life.
The problem comes, when Ella is called in the Principal’s office not because of bad grades or because she is always running late - it’s because someone is here to see Ella. This is how our Ella meets Callum Royal, who tells her that Ella’s father Steve is dead and he is his legal guardian.
Ella of course would not have it and she would try to escape. She gathers all her prized possessions - a watch from her father, her mother’s ID, some cash and a few pairs of clothes. She comes down at the club to make some quick cash and she is ready to run away. And she meets Callum Royal again! Yes! Can you imagine? The rich client that Ella have to dance for in private so she could make enough money to run away is the same person who she is trying to run away from. Well, Ella didn’t give up even when Callum was rude, disgusting and judgemental towards her and she did the only thing she can do best - to dance for him.
Well, Ella probably didn’t thought that she would be kidnapped but to be honest I didn’t expect that one either. So Callum Royal offered a deal to Ella - if she agrees to come and live with him and his family, finish high school in a private school and then graduate college, without trying to run away from them, Ella would get ten thousand dollars in advance and another ten thousand dollars every month. To be honest if I get such a deal I would agree, too. So did Ella.
This is how our beloved Ella ended up moving to the Royal’s huge mansion in a completely different world. A world of rich, spoiled, privileged kids,that could get away with anything for the right price, of course.
Ella stood up to this and didn’t give up. Countless times she was humiliated by her new school mates, humiliated some more by the spoiled Royal boys, but Ella managed to stay true to herself and showed them that no matter how hard they try - they won’t break her.
To be honest among all those Royal boys - the twins Sebastian and Sawyer, Easton, Gideon and Reed I liked Easton most. He was the most hearthwarming character of them all, even though that the author has decided to pair Ella with the bad boy Reed. Eh, what can we do about it except continue and reading about Reed some more.
So, where was I? Ah, yes. Ella has managed to escape from the pulling strength and the passion between her and Reed, however the faith… umm.. the author had the last word. I can’t help but mention that Ella and Reed are somewhat of a good pair and they complete each other, however I secretly hoped that Ella would end up with Easton.
At the end of the day, after countless trials, humiliation, scandals and fights, she and Reed ended up together. Oh, so cute! Yes, they might be cute, but I did not like one thing about Reed - he was the typical bad boy, way too angry at the world and very cynical.
Let’s not even get to the point where he is so possessive and controlling with Ella. I can’t explain to myself why on earth a girl would stay with a boy that would want to control all her life and would fight with everyone that would even look at her. I wouldn’t stay with such a boy! Well, I wouldn’t but I am not Ella. Good thing is that Ella didn’t give up so easily.
I like how besides all the things she has gone through, besides her hard life so far, Ella has so much good in herself. Ella is strong, sometimes snappy and tough and she doesn’t let life breaks her. And no matter what life puts her through, or the Royal boys do, Ella stays true to herself, she is unwavering, feisty and she stood for herself. No matter how many doors and opportunities the money and the Royal name has opened for Ella, she stayed the same thoughtful and humble girl. I was so happy when Ella managed to find a friend in Valerie. Yay!
I won’t dive into useless descriptions for the whole Royal family or for the boys separately because it will be such a mess.
Instead, I will continue with my overall impression of the book. Well, there are four more books (the last one is still in progress and yet to be written) from the series, so we will talk about Royal family and Ella a lot.
The book is interesting and enthralling and relaxing read. You don’t have to keep a close eye on the details because you will not miss anything important that might be included in the future. Just the opposite - the book is light and you will read it quite fast. There is a big dose of suspense, very big amount of sarcasm, a pinch of intrigues, a spoon of romance (a bit of sex) and of course - friendship, lux, money and drama.
The storyline is not something complicated and twisted like a ten thousand puzzle pieces. I definitely liked the idea, even though I am not a big fan of such direct storyline. There were moments I also didn’t like.
To be honest - I was not impressed with the constant nagging and presence of sex scenes. Yes, it’s quite obvious that for a couple of teenagers with surging hormones probably nothing else would matter besides sex, however… It was way too unnecessary for me. It was a bit too much at times, especially in the other books. I think the book would be so much better if everything would not revolve around sex, fu***ng and all those similar descriptions. It’s not even proper to rub in the face of the reader that for a seventeen year old boy, rich and spoiled , the most important thing in the world is to drink until unconscious; to have promiscuous and countless relationship without even the slightest hint of respect towards the girls and to get away with everything because he has rich and powerful parents. That’s just not right.
Sadly, no matter how bad that this would sound and out of place, unfortunately I kinda understand the point of the author - after all, this whole picture is completely accurate in our modern reality. This is why I love reading anti - utopia books.
This is exactly why I would give this book 4 / 5 golden stars.
Just like any other book this one has its good and bad sides, but for me the good sides were significantly more.
I am diving in to the next book from the Series and you, my dearest Angels don’t stop reading! At least that’s what I do.