I've been in a princess-reading mood, I guess, which has led me in some peculiar directions. Like, you know, this one. It's a fairytale story: random college student gets random message, random message turns into friendship, turns into romance...turns out that the guy messaging her is a prince.

It's pure princess fantasy, of course. But I'm reminded of [b:The Royal We|22875451|The Royal We|Heather Cocks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1421107274s/22875451.jpg|42439906], and I can't help comparing this rather unfavourably to that: because in The Royal We, there's a tremendous amount of attention paid to the scrutiny that someone in this role (i.e., royal girlfriend) would face, from the royal family and from the public and from the press. Here it's sort of boiled down to 'Everybody loves you, Clemmie! You're a breath of fresh air and we're so pleased that you're changing the face of the monarchy! ...everyone except the queen, of course, but she's just a frigid bitch who only cares about power, so who cares about her?' Some odd disconnects: Christian (a.k.a. prince loverboy) gets really upset whenever Clementine does anything that might suggest that she's conforming to the monarchy's standards, but he's also low-key appalled when Clementine doesn't know that if the king is done with his meal, everyone else is to be done also. This disconnect would be fine...if it were acknowledged. Or...no, I'm not going to get into the brain tumour. Suffice it to say that it's a romanticised version of a royal romance, in which most possible lines of conflict are ignored in favour of evil bitchy queens and most arguments are resolved with 'the monarchy doesn't matter! Only you matter!'