Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Book Review Jan 29, 2023

My review

4/5 stars

Same-sex couplings haven't been a big feature in my reading history thus far, not on purpose, but just because they've never really crossed my path before. If this one was anything to go by, I should probably search out some more.

The reason I was drawn to this one was the way it featured a version of the Royal Family - I love a good novel based on the Royal Family. There were a lot of great similarities to real life included in this book, they helped the family to feel real and relatable.

I found the story itself very easy to get into, and the sheer nature of the story meant it felt very non-judgemental. I was a particular fan of the openness with which all of the characters approached their life choices - there was no pressure, no sense of right or wrong, just a curiosity about what worked best for them.

I really enjoyed the romance between the main characters, and their individual character foibles made them both endearing and charming in their own right - seeing them together just enhanced how much I bought into their lives. My only quibble with their relationship is that the writing felt too heavily focused on sex, I would have liked to see more of their every-day chats and experiences on the page.

I also felt that the end was a little rushed compared to the slower pace throughout the rest of the book. The slower pace worked because it felt exploratory and dramatic - matching the plot perfectly - so the suddenness with which everything got resolved caught me off guard a little.

Brilliant book overall, well worth a read.

Book blurb

Alex Claremont-Diaz is handsome, charismatic, a genius--pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House ever since his mother first became President of the United States. There’s only one problem. When the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an altercation between Alex and Prince Henry, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family and state devise a plan for damage control: stage a truce. But what begins as a fake, Instagrammable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon they are hurtling into a secret romance that could derail the presidential campaign and upend two nations.