I read the Duchess’s awful children’s book so you don’t have to.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, released her first children’s book in June with much publicity and buzz surrounding it but sales have fizzled out, unsurprisingly.

Let me start with a disclaimer: I am in no way part of the ‘We Hate Meghan Markle Club’, who seem to just attack anything the woman does for no reason. I personally find the way she has been treated to be abhorrent and malicious, and wish their family the best.

That being said, this is possibly one of the worst children’s books I have ever read- and I have read Love You Forever. 

One of the main issues is the confused intended audience. The Duchess has marketed the book as a children’s picture book, one meant to share at bedtime and read together, but it is not engaging, lacks rhythm, and is speaking to the father of the child and not the child itself. I realise this shift in perspective was the point- the book is based on a poem she wrote for Harry for Father’s Day- however a sweet personal poem doesn’t always translate into a decent book for kids.

After I read a scathing article slamming the book for its saccharine feel and boring theme, I honestly thought they were being harsh on Meghan and perhaps they just didn’t like her… But to be frank, I agree. The book lacks a good story, or any story at all really, and while it is good to see diversity in the illustrations they don’t add anything to the book either. Some of the pictures look literally like a small child has drawn them, which, again, may be the point? Maybe I am missing something? But I wasn’t impressed with the watercolours that merely look like an eight year old had a go with their felt-tipped pens. The lack of consistency and the unfinished nature in the drawings make it feel like they were rushed- some of the dads have parts missing, or the hands are odd, and the perspective of some of the benches is off.

For me the book could have been written off as yet another clumsy attempt at writing a children’s picture book by a celebrity but one particular line just made me cringe so hard it hurt and turned a boring book into an awful book.

The final line “Right there on your bench, the place you’ll call home, with daddy and son, where you’ll never be ‘lone.”  It makes no sense to end it with such a jarring and out-of-place word. Why not write the full word ‘alone”? What is the purpose of ending it with that? No where else in the book does she write a word with an omission apostrophe. It is not like the rest of her rhyming structure is all that strict so it wouldn’t make a bit of difference if she just wrote the full word.

And who even speaks like that?!

Some may purchase the book for their husbands or boyfriends as a Father’s Day gift but I doubt it will be one chosen by the child again and again for bedtime reading. Of course we should probably give the Duchess the benefit of the doubt, this is her first children’s book after all, and writing a decent children’s book is harder than people think, however clearly this uninspiring book is not going to go down in history as a great classic to be read in years to come.