Book Club August 2019- Red, White, & Royal Blue
By: Casey McQuistion
Published Year: 2019
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Pages: 423
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?
Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.
What I thought
This is one of those books that has been making the rounds of the internet. I had read many good things about this book. Anyone that read it was raving about how good it was. Seeing that politics and LGBTQ centered books are not typically my style, I shied away from it, even though I do love royal dramas. I was a little nervous when Logan picked this for her book club book, but was pleasantly surprised.
Alex is the son of the first female President of the United States. Henry is the youngest Prince of England. Alex hates Henry until he is forced to pretend to be his best friend to avoid political scandal. Alex and Henry end up falling in love.
That’s pretty much the gist of this book. And while my summary is short and sweet, that’s because I want you to read and enjoy this book for yourself and not give anything away. The writing in this book was so solid. It was the perfect balance between smart and funny.
The interesting thing about this book is that it is advertised as a Young Adult novel, but I don’t think I would classify it as that. In fact, I think the bubblegum pink cartoon cover doesn’t do this book justice. But, I do appreciate that this book is targeted towards a young audience because I feel like it’s one that can positively influence so many people who might not pick it up if it was geared toward an older audience.
I was a bit surprised by exactly how political this book got. I expected it to be heavy on the romance and not as heavy on the politics. That’s why I said that this book is smart. McQuiston does a great job at not dumbing anything down and making it believable that this is a family deep into the political world. I loved some of the parallels to the real world.
Alex and Henry were both a lot of fun to read. Alex is unlike any character I have ever read and I enjoyed him. I liked reading about his personal struggles and he doesn’t become whiney. Henry was a lot of fun too. I think I appreciated Alex a little more than Henry, but I think that’s because the story wasn’t told from his perspective. I did like the insight into Henry’s life in the palace and would’ve loved to learn more about his life and his sister’s life.
This book also made me laugh. The emails were so much fun and there were some great one-liners. Again, I didn’t expect this book to be as funny as it was. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I have drank the Kool-aid. I will gladly push this book onto everyone and can’t wait to discuss it at book club.