I placed this on hold a few weeks back, and the timing couldn't have been better since it was available for check out the same week the Queen died. This is a heavy tome chock-full of detail so I learned a lot. So much of it was fascinating while also being completely unrelatable. I did skim and skip over a lot. I didn't care to read about Andrew's issues, and while the Press is quite obviously awful, I grew tired of reading about it. What I walked away with is that Charles isn't as boring as he appears, that Camilla is admirable in her steadfastness and her humor, that Diana made a lot of bad choices, and that cycles repeat in each generation.

It will be interesting to see what comes next as Charles and then William lead the monarchy. Given how the monarchy was shaken up with Andrew's mess and Harry and Megan's mess, there's probably more to come. Despite being planned to the minute detail for decades, the death of the Queen has some serious backlash that I think the Firm was unprepared for. Will they move forward and acknowledge the harms they inflicted throughout the world? Apologies and reparations would really cement Charles and/or William's legacy, but would it also be the downfall of the monarchy? Maybe, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.