Paper Princess

This was recommended to me by one of the ladies at book club as one of those, “you will not believe this book”. Reading the horrible reviews on Goodreads sealed it for me. I was going to read this and see what was up. I just want to add a note here that romance is not my genre. I don't read bodice rippers or modern, uh, erotica or whatever it's calling itself.
First: the good! Yo, I really liked Ella and I loved her strong, strong voice. While I thought some of her tactics for standing up for herself were a little lame, at least she stood up for herself. I think she endeared herself to me when she went and got a job! I love scrappy, poor main characters because I identify with them.
The bad: seriously, everyone else has nailed it with the bad reviews. Yes this is crazy sexist and there are some real anti-feminist moments here, and I am NOT defending them but I found the men to be represented equally as poorly here. All of the Royals are just stereotypical of bad, “male” behavior.
So, imho, everybody is poorly written. Equally.

I highly doubt I will continue with the series but I read it and the pages turned easily enough. No harm done. The fact that I finished it says there must have been something about the storytelling I liked well enough.