Friday 25 October 2019

Red, White and Royal Blue by: Casey McQuiston

Genre: New Adult Fiction, Contemporary
Published: May 14, 2019 by: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 421
Rating: 5/5 stars



Alex Claremont- Diaz is the quintessential golden boy. He is handsome, charming, and his mother just also happens to be president of the United States. There's only one problem though, and that is that Alex has an extreme distaste for England's golden boy, Prince Henry of Wales. When Alex and Henry get into a controversial fight at a high-class gathering, the US and UK both agree to stage a friendship between the two boys to ease tensions. However, this pretend friendship soon blossoms into something more, and with his mother searching for re-election, Alex must decide if this love is truly worth it.

This book was on my radar as soon as I realized it was coming out. I needed a fluffy romance in my life, especially during the summertime. Mix that with my interest in the British royals and American politics, and I got myself a great read!

This book has the classic enemies to lovers trope. I absolutely love this trope because the romance tends to be slow-burn, and thus means so much more in the end. I really got to see Alex and Henry's relationship develop, and it was really adorable to see. Also because they're enemies at first, there are a lot of sarcastic quips throughout the novel that just makes their relationship so darn lovable.

The secondary characters are also awesome throughout the book. Alex's sister, the vice-president's daughter, and even Henry's sister were all so iconic! There are some strong female characters throughout this book that I really enjoyed reading about.

This book is extremely diverse. There are bi-racial characters, bi-sexual characters, gays, lesbians, the whole works! I think these details make the book so awesome, because every character has something unique about them. This isn't a cookie-cutter romance. It is an adorable novel that doesn't fetishize gay relationships. It's also more NA than YA, so it's a little bit more mature and realistic to the stage in life that I am in right now. Overall, I loved every second of it.

Have you read Red, White and Royal Blue? What did you think?

Emily @ Paperback Princess

5 comments:

  1. Sounds cool :)

    Argh! I have issues with the way I've seen people talk about Wales and England vs Britain with this book though! England =/= Britain!

    Not to mention the *whole* issue of the stolen title used to oppress our beautiful land for centuries. But I'm gonna stop myself from going into all *that*!

    Also, technically Prince Henry of Wales is Prince Harry's official title! That's due to the fact that his father has said stolen title of Charles, Prince of Wales. And Harry's actual name is Henry. #TrueStory. ;)

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    1. I actually did know that Prince Harry’s real title is Prince Henry of Wales! Also given that the prince in this story is so clearly a ginger, it makes me wonder where the author got her inspiration from haha!

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    2. Ha, it'll turn out this is just wish-fulfilment for the author, and they're like, 'Hey! I could make money from my weirdly specific fantasy!' Lol!

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  2. I haven't read this one yet but now I REALLY want to! I have seen this all over Instagram and book blogs and it just seems super cute. I am not typically a romance lover, but something about this is so appealing. Awesome review, Emily.

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    1. It’s a really unique romance! Because it’s enemies to lovers, I find it’s less heavy on the cheesy stuff and more humorous. I hope you’ll give it a go!

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