Royal Bastards

Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley.
This book sounded very interesting and I was looking forward to reading it. I almost put it down about three times in the first two chapters, however, and had to force myself to keep going. The problem was not with the story itself, the plot, the action, or most of the characters. The problem was with the main character Tilla. The book is narrated in the first person from her point of view, and in the first several pages she comes across as immature, slightly petulant, shallow, and coarse. I felt as though I were watching a bad CW program instead of reading a medieval-type fantasy novel. And this is mainly due to the words the author chooses to use. Insert "belly" for "abs," "carousing" instead of "partying," or "awe-inspiring" for "awesome," and the story would have flowed so much better. As it was, the author's word choice and syntax made Tilla seem unintelligent, uninteresting, foolish, and immature. I was not impressed by her at all and did not want to read a whole book told from her perspective.
I did press on, though, and despite the fact that Tilla never did get much better, the story and plot was good, and that kept me interested.
If the author had written a book with characters who fit into the medieval type of world that he created, this would have been a great book. It seemed however, that he took modern teenagers and stuck them right into the story where they did not fit, along with their verbiage, interests, and attitudes. Words and phrases like "hooking up," "screw braiding my hair," "old fogeys, and "He was hot," were extremely jarring and just took me out of action every time. Take away the modern use of words and this would have been a much better book.


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