Royce Rolls by Margaret Stohl - OPTIONAL

Stohl, Margaret  Royce Rolls, 393 pgs.  Freeform Books, 2017.  $18.99  Content: Language: PG-13 (23 swears); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence PG.  

Bentley Royce is a reality television star on a series with her family.  Bentley is scripted to be the bad kid who always gets into trouble, but in real life she has dreams of going to college and leaving the show.  She puts her dreams on hold when her family starts to fall apart because their show might not be renewed.  Bentley steps up her antics on the show and makes every effort to get her family’s show approved for another season because she realizes that although it may not be what she wants, the Royce family needs to be on television.  

I REALLY wanted to love this book-the premise sounds entertaining, I like Margaret Stohl as an author and the cover is appealing.  But I strongly disliked this book because the characters are impossible to relate to as their attempts to gain media attention become ridiculous.  There are footnotes throughout the book (comments from the network producers) and it makes the beginning confusing and they have not point throughout the story.  My thirteen year old tried reading this book and hated it by page 20 and still tried to read it, but gave up at page 75.  Super disappointing.  The content is mostly clean, with underage drinking as the mature content and the death of a duck as the violence.  

MS, HS – OPTIONAL.  Reviewer, C. Peterson.