The apocalypse is fun--and royal--in this YA rom-com celebrating life's unplanned joys and the exhilaration of shedding expectations.
Wren is the girl with a plan: go to law school, become a lawyer, and prove she is as smart as her "genius" sister. The comet hurtling toward Earth complicates everything. Her new plan: get from her study abroad trip in England to her family in Chicago before everyone dies in eight days. Prince Theo, heir to the throne, is her best chance; he owes her a favor after she helped him elude the paparazzi. He agrees to fly her home if she gets him to Greece, where he wants to die released from the burden of "expectations [he'll] never meet," and undetected by his mother, the Queen of England.
It's hard for Wren to focus--she's traveling with a "living, breathing fairytale," bumping knees in a train bathroom, committing accidental grand-theft auto, and rescuing a yellow Labrador. So she compartmentalizes, shoving difficult thoughts--possibly never seeing her family again, the fun she missed while engineering a perfect future, falling for Theo--into her "box of off-limit emotions." Theo, however, transforms, happy and relaxed now that he is free of "royal pomp and circumstance." Wren can't understand why he doesn't want to die with his family. But a deal is a deal. And "not even the fucking prince of Wales is going to keep [her] away from the people [she] love[s]." Except maybe he's becoming someone she loves, too.
The Prince & the Apocalypse by Kara McDowell (This Might Get Awkward) sets a coming-of-age story at the end of the world, featuring characters who struggle to act because they have never truly chosen their own paths. Wren lies about her emotions and avoids the hard question of who she is if she isn't obsessing over her future. Her flaws interfere with how Theo wants to live his last days ("Blimey, Wren. Are you capable of having a conversation that's not buried under a thousand layers of sarcasm and banter?") but mirror it, too ("I don't know who I am if I'm not Theodore Geoffrey Edward George"). Hard-hitting lines ("We can just be Theo and Wren") create tension between plenty of deadpan and situational humor ("My orange hair frizzes out from my shoulders and panic sweat drips down my back. I've never felt sexier in my whole entire life"). Enchanting entertainment. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer
Shelf Talker: The apocalypse is fun--and royal--in this YA rom-com celebrating life's unplanned joys and the exhilaration of shedding expectations.