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Royally Crushed Royally Jacked; Spin Control; Do Over (2011)

by Niki Burnham(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1448770068 (ISBN13: 9781448770069)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Paw Prints

review 1: Maybe I just had low, nostalgic expectations--the first novel I ever wrote had a similar premise--or maybe some feel-good literature was exactly what I needed this week. Either way, I was very pleasantly surprised.A lot of my strife with contemporary YA comes down to my struggle to identify with characters whose interests and grammar choices clash with mine. And while Val's voice did often seem shallow, there was a surprising depth to the ridiculousness of her situation. She reacted exactly right--selfishly, but consciously so. We got to see her process the major changes in her life, to adjust with humor and awkwardness and adolescence.The "love triangle" section was incredibly well done, and I found myself cheering for Val and her self-awareness. The romance was fluffy, y... morees, and Georg had about as much personality as a squashed hat, but it was fun. It reminded me a lot of my own book and how ridiculous it was and how much I enjoyed writing it because of the ridiculousness, and the sappiness, and the way my characters interacted. I mean, I'll never say no to a dashing, sensitive prince. If your book has it, I'll read it. Royalty. Sigh.But hands down, my absolute favorite part of this book was Val's parents. PARENTS. IN CONTEMPORARY YA. WHAT A CONCEPT. And they were wonderful. Individual and independent and human and authoritative and supportive and important and I could not get enough of either of them. The way they interacted with Val was just... fijnjienjonenhie there just aren't any words for how much I adored them. If I could pick one thing to change about this whole book, it's that I wish we could have properly met Georg's parents, too. I'd have liked to see them without Georg's filtered view.I really enjoyed reading this omnibus. It was like popping a piece of yellow candy in your mouth, afraid it was artificial banana, only to discover it was lemon. Still a bit rough around the edges, but overall, a much more enjoyable experience than originally anticipated. :)
review 2: This is a bind-up of the Royally Jacked series and includes all 3 books; Royally Jacked, Spin Control, and Do-Over. They follow Valerie Winslow who’s parents have just split up. She is given the choice to either stay in Virginia and move in with her mother and her new girlfriend--yes THAT kind--or to move all the way to a tiny European country most people don’t even know exists. Her father has just been reassigned as the King’s new protocol expert in Schwerinborg and invites her to go with him. Neither option seem all that great, but she decides that maybe living in Europe for a year wouldn’t be too bad--especially since she’d be staying at the palace with the royal family. That’s where she meets Georg. He is nice, smart and just gets her. He also happens to be heir to the throne which complicates their relationship. She discovers that dating a prince isn’t anything like what the fairytales describe, but she’s fallen hard for the boy and isn’t about to give him up just yet.First off, I love bind-ups. They make owning and reading an entire series that much easier. I also love the new covers that come with them because they always seem to be so much better than the originals. Isn’t this one just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?But anyways, on to the actual books. All 3 are around 200 pages which makes them quick, easy reads. The title kind of makes you think that Valerie is going to get her heart crushed by the prince, but that is totally not the case. These books are sweet, fun and just plain CUTE. I don’t want to go into too much detail about each because I feel like that will spoil it for you, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed them. The last one, Do-Over, was definitely my favorite. As for the characters, they were okay. I did like Val and Georg, but her friends back in the US (Natalie, Jules, and Christie) were kind of annoying. As if moving to an entirely new continent wasn’t bad enough, they made her feel horrible about it. Two of them even stopped speaking to her for like a week when they found out which was just ridiculous. I also felt they were really pushy and didn’t listen to her or what she wanted. But that was also Valerie’s fault because she never really spoke up until about the end of the second book. less

Download links for: Royally Crushed Royally Jacked; Spin Control; Do Over

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