My Thoughts:
I think I heard about The Prince and the Apocalypse from The Bookish Life of Jess and Tori on YouTube. I heard the word “apocalypse” and immediately checked to see if the library had a copy. They did! I grabbed it. And had a very mixed reading experience, to say the least.
I loved the beginning of the book. Wren, an over-planner, can’t do anything without an itinerary. Forever feeling stressed because she can’t match up with her perfect sister, she has struggled to find her own way. Though she loves photography, she has allowed an off-hand comment from her sister to derail her passion and push her into the path both her sister and her mother have taken – law school.
In London for a much anticipated vacation away from her family and all of the pressure she feels with them, her plans have gone up in smoke. She’s spent most of the trip vomiting in her hotel room, her bff has met new friends and doesn’t seem to want to spend their last day in the UK with her, and the restaurant her sister raved about is closed for remodeling. Then she learns the worst: a comet is speeding toward Earth, and once it hits, all life on the planet will end.
I think that’s a hell of a set up. Add in a runaway prince, and you’ve got the ingredients for a really fun story. And it was for about 60% of the book. But as Wren’s and Theo’s plans to escape to Santorini hit mishap after mishap, I actually lost patience with the story. My breaking point was during the ferry ride, when they thought the boat was about to capsize during a freak storm, and Wren, Theo, and Comet, a dog they picked up along the way, don life vests and jump into the water. I just couldn’t anymore. Number one, if the waves were so violent they were going to sink the ship, two people and a dog didn’t stand much chance of not drowning. And number two – really? Do you have to terrorize that poor dog? I’m admittedly weird about animals in books, and just UGH. It also felt so forced, instead of an organic action, to move the characters to the next location in the story, and all of the mishaps piled on top of each other had my eyes rolling around in my head.
I think if the book had been about 50 pages shorter, or the ferryboat ride had been removed, I would have really enjoyed it. Instead, it jumped the shark and I just couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to enjoy the story from that point forward.
About the Book:
Title: The Prince and the Apocalypse
Author: Kira McDowell
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 312
Format: eBook
Source: Local Library
Rating: 2.75 Stars
From the back of the book:
An American teen stranded in London is forced to team up with the British crown prince if she wants to make it back home before the end of the world in this delightfully rompy high-stakes rom-com.
Wren Wheeler has flown five thousand miles across the ocean to discover she’s the worst kind of traveler: the kind who just wants to go home. Her senior-year trip to London was supposed to be life-changing, but by the last day, Wren’s perfectly-planned itinerary is in tatters. There’s only one item left to check off: breakfast at The World’s End restaurant. The one thing she can still get right.
The restaurant is closed for renovations—of course—but there’s a boy there, too. A very cute boy with a posh British accent who looks remarkably like the errant Prince Theo, on the run from the palace and his controlling mother. When Wren helps him escape a pack of tourists, the Prince scribbles down his number and offers her one favor in return. She doesn’t plan to take him up on it—until she gets to the airport and sees cancelled flights and chaos. A comet is approaching Earth, and the world is ending in eight days. Suddenly, that favor could be her only chance to get home to her family before the end of the world.
Wren strikes a bargain with the runaway prince: if she’ll be his bodyguard from London to his family’s compound in Santorini, he can charter her a private jet home in time to say goodbye. Traveling through Europe by boat, train, and accidentally stolen automobile, Wren finds herself drawn to the dryly sarcastic, surprisingly vulnerable Theo. But the Prince has his own agenda, one that could derail both their plans. When life as they know it will be over in days, is it possible to find a happy ending?
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