Red, White & Royal Blue #BookReview

Book: Red, White & Royal Blue
Author: Casey McQuiston

I fell head over heels in love with the endearing premise of this book even before I read it. The love story of the First Son of the United States and the British Prince — the stuff of dreams. So we have two delightful protagonists, Alex and Henry, with some political intrigue thrown in.

The narrative goes like this:

Alex Claremont the charismatic FSOTUS has hated Prince Henry all his life, or so he likes to believe. Then one day the two meet at a wedding. After an embarrassing misadventure, the two are put together to repair their damaged reputations through a picture-perfect (though fake), instragrammable friendship. That’s when they begin to open up to each other, share the struggles of constantly being in the public eye and lo and behold! sparks fly.

However, as always, the path of true love cannot but be strewn with thorns. Given their positions, the thorns are pricklier than ever.

Alex dreams of a career in politics and the odds are already rather precarious since he is half Mexican. Plus, he has to come to terms with his sexuality.

Prince Henry has always known he was gay but coming out doesn’t seem like an option. Getting the British Royal court to accept that their most eligible bachelor, their Prince Charming is gay is no easy task.

My thoughts

Red, White & Royal Blue was the 2019 winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards. I was looking for a light easy romance and it seemed perfect. And yet it didn’t have me gushing as I’d thought it would.

The story is told in the third person, mostly through Alex’s perspective. He’s smart and witty with a quicksilver tongue. I loved how clear and focussed he was in what he wanted from life. That said, Henry remained my favourite. I loved every bit of his understated, rather geeky persona and his subtle, very British sense of humour. I loved how keyed in he was about queer history. McQuiston weaves it in beautifully in the back and forth conversations he has with Alex.

There are a host of side characters. The First Family McQuiston builds up is delightfully warm and mushy.

As far as the British characters go, she was a tad bit unfair, settling for caricaturish stereotypes in her attempt at getting to the quintessential British stiff upper lip. All apart from Henry of course, who I thought was quite perfect.

My major beef with the book, and this was a big one, was the over liberal use of swear words. Despite being pegged as Young Adult fiction, it was peppered with the f*** word. That rankled. I couldn’t come to terms with families talking like that to each other not just in moments of stress but even otherwise.

Also, the rendezvous of the two lovelorn boys seemed highly improbable. I cannot see how two such prominent people could just ‘slip away’ during public events. However, I’m willing to forgive that in the name of creative license.

Those two factors took away from my enjoyment of the book, however, I do see why a romantic young adult would find it quite perfect.

Last thought: A mushy read for romantic YAs.