Red, White and Royal Blue || A Review

I didn’t plan on reading Red, White and Royal Blue in September. It wasn’t on my TBR and I had planned to wait until the hype died down since I had seen so many people talk about it. And then, I wandered into a unfamiliar library to waste time before work and there it was. I knew before I even read this book that I was going to love it. I mean… it’s about the First Son of the United States and his boyfriend who is a Prince of England.

“History, huh?”

Author: Casey McQuiston

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Borrowed or bought? Borrowed

Number of Pages: 423

Amazon: 9.99

Books A Million: 11.01

Book Depository: 11.65

Barnes and Noble: 13.59

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.

The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

There were so many things I loved about this book. I love the president being a woman, I loved the relationship between June, Alex and Nora. I loved how Ellen became a different person when she had the time to take off the president role and be with her kids. I loved how Alex and Henry sneaking around and how it went from forced friendship and misunderstanding to lovers (a favorite trope of mine). I am also so weak for anything involving royalty or any LGBT themes so I knew before I even read this book, that I would be a goner. There are so many other things I loved about this book but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it.

So really, I could only think of one bad thing that really tripped me up with this book. Since it is set in recent times, making mentions of the Obama’s and the 2016 and 2020 elections, it was hard for me to create an entirely new royal family in my mind. The first family was easy since it changes every 4-8 years anyway but the royals have always been the royals. So for a bit in the beginning I was trying to make characters fit to the royal family I am familiar with.

Not sure if this is a “Bad” thing or not but I wanted to share this other review by: Katrina Reads since I think she brought up a lot of good points that did not pop out to me since I am American.