A review by effy
American Queen by Sierra Simone

5.0

Review on first re-read: Is this book absolutely perfect and completely flawless? No. Did I still manage to have an utterly amazing time and basically went through it with a silly grin on my face? Hell yes!

I was very nervous to pick this book up again because I remember having such a good time when I first read it and was worried that it would not hold up on re-read. Thankfully all of my worry was for naught as this book was just as good as I remembered it the first time, if anything it was made better for the fact that I knew that certain story moments were coming and could see the places where the foundations were laid.

There are definitely some very rough parts to this book, especially the fact that 
Greet is only 16 when she first meets a 26-year-old Ash
but the book is very self-aware of what it is doing and, in my opinion, manages to straddle the line between taboo and acceptable. 
I found the emails that Greer sent to Ash when she was 16-17 to be quite uncomfortable but then I remembered that I was incredibly similar at that age and it helped to reconceptualise things.


This sense of self-awareness carries through to the other somewhat taboo aspects such as the 
incest reveal
.

This book is definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea as it is a little taboo, quite kinky, and VERY smutty but for me it is the exact perfect mix and I just really enjoy it.

I really like that in a lot of ways this book is just a love story and the drama is quite low in contrast to the incredibly dramatic books that are American Prince and American King.

Rating on first read: 3.75⭐
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