Royals is a very strange Australian contemporary young adult novel that mashes up magical realism with teen angst into a nonsensical story that I would’ve given up on had it not been an ARC. I was sent an email inviting me to request it by the publisher and when I looked it up, there were no reviews available, but I thought the premise sounded interesting and I hadn’t read any YA in ages, so thought it would make a nice change. How wrong was I! This is my first 1-star read in over two years, and I feel bad about it, but I couldn’t find anything to like about it, it was deadly boring, and poorly written. It’s described as being like Lord of the Flies, but was more like Under the Dome for Gen Zers.
Shannon is a sixteen year old school student from an unspecified town to the West of Sydney, who wakes up in a mall to find her phone is frozen, she’s locked inside on her own, and the people she can see outside can’t seem to see or hear her. Then she finds five other teens and a baby in the same predicament. Scared and confused, they are initially suspicious of each other, but once they work out that anything they consume is miraculously replaced overnight so they can help themselves to whatever they like, it seems like a dream come true - but is it?
The main reason I kept going with this was for some explanation of what was going on, and to find out how they could escape the mall. I don’t want to post spoilers but can say that nothing is explained. The whole thing is told in Shannon’s immature first person past voice - which is perhaps the reason for the writing being so basic. She reports everything that they do, eat, find, and “steal” including every toilet visit, every dull conversation, and every cup of Bubble Tea (not something I’ve ever tried, it sounds disgusting, but Shannon drinks a lot of it - probably why she’s always going to the bathroom 🤣.) There was also no humour whatsoever, and only one character was actually likeable (Grace.)
The author has gone to great lengths to make her cast as diverse as possible, which felt rather forced. Much is made of Shannon’s androgynous looks, but she’s very insistent about how cis and straight she is. They’re all from very different backgrounds - it’s not even really mentioned how they all came to be in the same place, why they were selected, or how they can remember some things and not others. Then it ends leaving multiple frustrating plot holes. At least it was short. Obviously I’m not the intended audience, so perhaps younger teenagers will enjoy this, but I don’t recommend it for adults and won’t be reading this author again.
I received an ARC from Simon & Schuster Australia via NetGalley.