Red, White, and Royal Blue

After a strong start, Red, White & Royal Blue faded for me. I'm generally on board when a writer chooses to lean into some familiar storytelling tropes, and Casey McQuiston definitely does so here: enemies-to-friends-to-lovers! pining! fake dating! There are some good one-liners, the cast is diverse, and there's a lot of wish fulfilment of varying kinds (romantic and political).

And yet.

I'm not saying that there needed to be some subversive element here, or that McQuiston should have dropped in an unexpected plot twist. There's absolutely a time and place for fluffy, escapist, happily-ever-after fiction—but there's also a way to do that well. About a third of the way in, Red, White & Royal Blue descended into the queer lit equivalent show more of a Hallmark movie, where two-dimensional characters react improbably to events that occur because they have to, not because it feels organic to the story at all.

It wasn't helped by the fact that although McQuiston's Prince Henry is basically a thinly veiled spin on the real life Prince Harry (only gay and academic), the author seems to base her knowledge of the British monarchy, and indeed the United Kingdom, on TV shows she's seen—and American ones at that. Each of the mistakes is fairly small in itself, but they add up and serve to undermine the book.

(British princes and princesses of the blood royal don't have surnames; they don't wear "head-to-toe Burberry" (gauche), or say "soz" if in their sixties (registers of speech being heavily mediated by both age and class), or refer to Buckingham Palace as simply "Buckingham", etc., etc. If Henry is the third child of the heir apparent to the throne, he is neither "the monarch" nor "the Prince of Wales". He's not "the Prince of England", for that matter, nor can he "abdicate".)

That leads me to the book's biggest failing: its lack of real imagination. While Henry can't abdicate a throne he doesn't possess, he could give up his place in the line of succession. This is a neat solution to various plot/personal problems which is never mooted by various characters who really should because... well, for no reason I can see other than that McQuiston wants to dutifully wag a finger at the blood-soaked imperialism of the British colonial endeavour but equally cannot imagine a scenario in which the most romantic/happy-ending thing would be for Henry to give up the title of prince and walk away from the whole hideous heteronormative monarchist racket.

But then Henry wouldn't be a prince! And so for all its cast of queer, trans, non-white characters, Red, White & Royal Blue's ultimate fantasy isn't of a world where the system gets overturned, just of one where the scope of who is on the inside gets expanded.

Meh. show less

So, look.

What I was expecting when I read this book was to enjoy it, but not feel the rollicking delight I was seeing based on the ARCs. I expected that it was fresh and fun and a lot over-hyped. I don't think it was over-hyped. I think this book is hard to explain, but it's set in a world where a woman won the 2016 election, and frankly, that right there is my favorite kind of fiction. The kind that doesn't feel like my country's betraying, well, everyone.

I got a fantasy, a fairytale, part epistolary, LOTS of pining and anguish, awesome banter, American politics and early 20 somethings being absolutely shithead early 20 somethings. Harry's voice was distinct from Alex's. I've got quotes. I've got this feeling I can't quite explain show more that is absolutely fulfilled escapism. I think I was smiling for the majority of it. I also cried for Henry. THE LONGING. UGH, I feel it.

In my opinion ONE thing could've made this book perfect. I don't mind present tense, I really don't. It can be effective--as it was when I was on the edge of my seat counting electoral votes. But this was third person present tense, from one POV. I did find this oddly jarring especially when Alex is recalling feelings or something, it came off somewhat awkward. HOWEVER, this doesn't submarine this cupcake of a book in the least, I just *wished* it hadn't been that way.

Which is why the texts, emails, and banter were the absolute strongest part of this book. Lovely, hilarious, sweet. And it hit me right in my feels and it was so so early 20 something to me (not in a way like "these immature jackasses," just in the way that makes you recall that age.) It was lovely to love Alex's warm irreverence immediately and to get to know and love Henry with him, LOVELY. I didn't want to finish this book; I couldn't stop reading this book. I love American politics, and my husband and I joke our Superbowl is election returns and always have been. That just increased the intensity of my enjoyment for this book--the long drink of lemonade on a hot day. show less

With school ramping up and the american presidential election campaign coming to an end, I thought it was time to jump back into the lives of Alex and Henry. This is my third reread and even though I always tell myself I’m going to take this book slowly, I inevitably rush through Red, White & Royal Blue in under two days. This isn’t because Casey McQuiston’s pacing is off or that it’s a short book, but rather that McQuiston has crafted an addicting rom-com.

I first read RWRB summer 2019 after impulse buying it. I was blown away by how much I loved it, mainly because it is a book that genuinely makes me laugh out loud. One of the reasons I think this book works the way it does, and has so many people gushing about it, is what show more McQuiston calls herself “a tongue-in-cheek parallel universe…[an] escapist, trauma-soothing, alternate-but-realistic reality.” The books makes the perfect escape. Imagine the US government as full of progressive, diverse politicians who all care about the american people. Imagine a world where the sons of world leaders can date. In 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic and changing world governments, it’s soothing to read about Alex and Henry, who love each other so much, zipping around.

This book is loved because it’s fun, light-hearted, incredibly hilarious, and even though bad things happen in the book, everything turns out alright in the end. McQuiston nailed the atmosphere and emotions, and has you laughing and crying along with all the characters. I felt all the feels at all the right moments. This is the perfect book if you are looking for something to read after having read heavy, and the ultimate summer read.

This is a third-person narrated rom-com. While I find personally unusual for the genre, it does work well and does what it needs to do. That being said, I did have issues with Alex’s characterization. The narrative follows his story. While he’s an interesting character, I understand how some people call him unlikeable. At the start, he is a bit of a brat, and can be a self-centered twat. But within the genre, this is not an uncommon character-trait and I think that McQuiston takes the time to show his character development. Alex is flawed, but with good intentions. More than anything, I never felt like Alex or any of the other characters fell flat. In fact, all the characters were loveable.

One of the things that makes this book so loveable to people around my age, older teenagers and people in their twenties, is also one of the things that can be its downfall. The language in the book is very modern and is funny if you get the humor, but alienating if you don’t. A lot of the humor requires knowledge of millennial/gen z humor, american politics, tumblr, gay twitter, or some sort of mixture of all four.

Additionally, the book reads life fanfiction. Depending on who you are, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing. For me, I’m a sucker for the enemy to lover trope, along with characters ending up in outrageous situations. Of course, I think to write this off as just a rom-com is to undermine how important LGBT representation is in fiction. In an era where I still hear “why does there have to a **insert minority character** in the media I consume!” RWRB is refreshing. It is, to repeat myself, a lot of fun, but also has a diverse cast.

I think for anyone who has read the scathing Goodreads reviews, or is worried that Red, White & Royal Blue won’t live up to the Bookstagram praise, I would recommend reading it as a cute fluffy romance away from the real issues within life. Even if the book isn’t your jam, I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Rating: 9.5/10 If you’ve made it this far into the review, do I even need to repeat myself? I’ve had fun every time I’ve read this book, and Red, White & Royal Blue stands on my bookshelf for anytime I need an escape from real life. show less

One of my bar none top five favorites of the year, and I'm so glad it won both Best Debut Novel and Best Romance of the year, over everything in the world else. I super don't even want to spoil people with a clear write-up of everything, so that it doesn't spoil all of the glory.

This is an amazing comedy-romance-political-drama between Alex, the biracial, bisexual First Son of the (female!) President of the United States and Henry, the youngest, very gay, Prince of England. It will make you laugh out loud. It will make you blush in public. It will have you tearing up. You will read it like it is the best fanfic you could never put down, with every single trope done well and happily.

I could not have asked for more from this book. Go show more read it. Right now. show less

This book was a delight. Not only do I love a good enemies to lovers romance, but this book created a lovely fantasy world where Trump apparently does not exist and a badass woman from Texas is president, members of the royal family are thoughtful about where their wealth came from and dedicated to justice, and gay love conquers all. The homophobes lose and people with integrity win.

The first son of the United States and the "spare" heir to the British crown hate each other--or maybe they love each other? When the fallout from a public misunderstanding forces them to spend time together, they discover pretty quickly it's the latter. But how is that gonna work? Trust me when I say that if you have any inclination toward reading romance or rom-coms that you will enjoy finding out very much. The prose is light and funny, the situation has substance, the characters (including the side characters, of which there is a treasure trove) are well-drawn and distinct, the ending is happy but plausible, and the situation (the US president here is a divorced woman with biracial children) provides just enough catharsis for the show more 2016 election that the book feels something like a balm. If I were in quibbly mood, I might say 400+ pages is too long for a rom-com, but I loved every stinking second of this, so maybe I'm just wrong there. If you've been avoiding this one because of the hype, tuck that aside if you can. RW&RB is just about universally loved because it is that. good. show less

Red, White, & Royal Blue is Casey McQuiston’s debut novel, a male/male, cotemporary rom-com that basically exists in a parallel universe with a different royal family and a different American political landscape. Alex is the son of the first female president of the United States and about the closest thing to royalty America has, while Henry is an actual British prince. When Alex met Henry for the first time a few years earlier, the encounter annoyed him so much, he decided that the handsome prince was his sworn enemy. Now as the president’s son, Alex has been roped into attending Henry’s older brother’s wedding, during which Alex provokes an argument with Henry that ends in an international incident when they accidentally show more topple the happy couple’s $75,000 wedding cake. To smooth over relations between the two countries, Alex’s mom insists that he make several public appearances with Henry in which they’ll play it off as them actually being good friends who had simply had a misunderstanding. Alex is determined to hate Henry, but the more time they spend together, the more he starts to discover that they have some things in common and he begrudgingly begins to like his nemesis. A tentative friendship starts to form and after an impulsive kiss shared at a New Year’s Eve fundraiser that rocks Alex’s world, he’s even feeling attracted to Henry, something that’s a bit confusing to him since he’s only ever dated women. But before long Alex embraces his bisexual awakening with tons of late-night texts and phone calls and as many stolen moments together as he and Henry can manage with their respective busy schedules an ocean apart. Soon they’re falling hard and fast for one another, but just as Alex is ready to declare his love, Henry pulls away, afraid that what they have will never fly with the royal family. And there’s also the not small matter of how the public will receive the news and what it might mean for Alex’s mom’s reelection campaign if word gets out about their relationship.

The entire book is told from Alex’s third-person POV. He’s ethnically mixed with a white mom and Mexican immigrant dad. Both of his parents are heavily involved in American politics. His mom, as I’ve mentioned, is the first female president, while his dad is a congressman. Alex, himself, has ambitions to become the youngest person elected to Congress, but as the story progresses, he begins to question his plans for the future. Alex’s first memory of Henry is from when he was a tween, seeing the prince’s picture in one of his older sister’s teen magazines. Ever since, he’d been a little intrigued, until he actually met Henry at the Olympics a few years earlier where the prince basically brushed him off in a rude way that has left Alex disliking him ever since. When the two have to play nice after their international incident, Alex isn’t the least bit happy about it, but gradually he starts to change his mind about Henry. After their searing New Year’s Eve kiss, Alex slowly comes to realize that his mild obsession with Henry’s picture in the magazine and his youthful experimentation with a male friend were actually signs of a bisexuality that he’s only now starting to embrace. He’s unable to deny, though, that he can’t stop thinking about Henry and can hardly wait for the times when they can see each other in person. Their sexual chemistry is off the charts, and Alex starts to wonder if Henry is his forever person. However, as much as he’d like to shout his love from the rooftops, he feels obligated to keep their relationship under wraps until after the election for his mom’s sake.

Alex has a charismatic personality and isn’t afraid to speak his mind, but at the same time he doesn’t have many close friends. It’s mainly just his sister, June, and the vice president’s granddaughter, Nora, who constitute his friend pool. Despite his parents being divorced, he’s very family-oriented, and his family are a great support system to him. He has a strong desire to leave the world a little better place, which is why he thinks he should follow his parents’ footsteps and go into politics, but he also realizes that there might be other ways he can contribute, too. This is one of the areas where he and Henry make a strong connection. I love that even though he’s only dated women in the past, he doesn’t dismiss his growing attraction to Henry and pretty quickly embraces his bisexuality. I adored him for how supportive and protective he is of Henry when Henry is having a rough time, and how he can read the prince so well that it’s like they’ve known each other forever. Alex is the perfect mix of alpha passion, confidence, and a desire to defend what’s his and a gentler, sweeter, more romantic side that is mostly reserved for the love of his life.

We only get to know Prince Henry through Alex’s eyes, but he’s developed in such a way that I absolutely adored him. His parents were kind of rebels. His mother, Princess Catherine, who is heir to the throne, fell madly in love with his dad, an actor who played James Bond. Even though the queen forbade them to marry, the couple did anyway and had three children with Henry being the youngest. His father passed away shortly before he met Alex for the first time at the Olympics. Henry has known most of his life that he’s gay, but the tradition behind the crown weighs heavily on his head. Knowing that he likely won’t be accepted as a gay prince, he’s mostly kept it to himself and struggled with it in secret. Only his sister, Bea, and best friend, Pez, know, and although his grandmother, the queen, seems to suspect, she’s made it abundantly clear where she stands and it isn’t with Henry. When Henry has to start spending time with Alex, he’s crazy attracted to him, not only physically, but because Alex isn’t afraid to challenge him in spite of his princely status. After the impulsive New Year’s Eve kiss, Henry ghosts Alex, afraid of what he’s thinking, but when he finds out that Alex very much liked it, a real relationship begins to take root. However, if the rest of Henry’s family find out, he may not ever be able to see Alex again. Henry is really sweet, the shy, bookish introvert to Alex’s outgoing nature. I could really relate to him, because he loves reading, writing, and history as much as I do. He also very much wants to make a difference in the world, so I appreciated his philanthropic work. He can sometimes become a bit brooding and moody when he gets too much in his head, but Alex is usually there to be a pick-me-up and help him sort things out. I just really loved Henry and was totally rooting for him to get out from under his grandmother’s controlling thumb.

This book had a number of elements, which in the hands of a lesser author, could have been major detractors for me as a reader. First of all, it’s written in third-person, present-tense, which is a style so rare that I can probably count on one hand the number of books I’ve read that were written in this way and it’s not a style I’ve cared for much in the past. A part of me thinks that if readers were only going to be given one character’s POV, it might have been better if written in first-person, but I’ll admit that the further I read, the less of an issue it became for me. The author also has a tendency to sometimes drift into omniscient narration, which I’m not really fond of either. The story has a strong enemies-to-lovers trope, one that I’ve never really had a great deal of enthusiasm for, but here is comes off as utterly charming and endearing. With them each having their respective responsibilities and living on opposite sides of an ocean, Alex and Henry can sometimes be apart for weeks at a time, but it helped a lot that they call, text, and email frequently, and the author speeds up time by jumping ahead to their next in-person meeting so it doesn’t seem quite so long. I’m typically a fan of steamy romances with plenty of sexy details, where here, the love scenes are more sensual with less of an explicit nature, but somehow they still managed to pack a major punch. Lastly I found it slightly bothersome that Henry is the Prince of Wales, which is a courtesy title usually conferred upon the oldest male who’s first in line to inherit the throne, so by rights this would have been his brother, Philip’s title, not Henry’s. I know this is a fictional royal family, but accuracy is still important to me. However, not even this little factual misstep could seem to dampen my enthusiasm for Alex and Henry and their story, nor ultimately did any of the other things I cited.

I genuinely ended up loving Red, White, & Royal Blue. It’s now my favorite rom-com, as well as one of my favorite romances of all time in general, but you might be wondering why since it had so many potential strikes against it. First of all, Alex and Henry are adorable and absolutely perfect together. They really step up for each other and give their all to the relationship. I love that they’re able to open up to each other in ways they often can’t with others and how they intuit things about one another. I’m utterly crazy for how Alex essentially storms the castle to declare his love, as well as how Henry is willing to take on the entire royal establishment for the chance at a future with Alex. They love each other with pure joy and without boundaries, something that I don’t always see in a romance. Their love scenes are full of passion, sensuality, and tenderness, leaving no question how these two men feel about each other. I’m pretty picky about rom-coms because oftentimes I feel like the author is trying too hard to be funny and the jokes fall flat. Even the better ones, will maybe get a few smiles or chuckles out of me, but I can’t recall the last time one made me LOL. Yet that’s exactly what this one did and quite a few times at that, proving that the author is very witty. At the same time, there were a few moments of angsty goodness toward the end that left my heart in my throat, but that just made what came next that much sweeter. There were times I could barely put this book down. I turned the final page happy that I’d had the chance to read Red, White, & Royal Blue, but also sad that it was over. I felt like I could spend forever with Alex and Henry, because they made my heart joyful and happy and were a healing balm to my soul. If the author ever decides to write a follow-up story for them, I’d be first in line to buy it. But I suppose I can console myself with the movie. Fingers crossed that it’s as good as the book. show less