Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – Audio
Book Blurb:
When his mother became President of the United States, 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 an 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 the family and state and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: Stage a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instagrammable 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 presidential campaign and upend two nations. It raises 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 ben? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? , how will history remember you?
My Review: 4 stars
Red, White & Royal Blue came out with a bang, tons of hype and lots of fanfare. Due to pure lack of time, I never got to it. As is the age-old reader’s problem, new books come out and the oldies get put aside. Honestly, that happened to me. A dear friend asked me if I’d read the upcoming sequel and when I told her I’d never read the first, I was completely book shamed. I saw it was at my library on audio and grabbed it that day.
Was the premise of this book likely? Absolutely not. Was it told with heart and humor? One hundred percent. Grandson of the Queen of England and son of the United States President having a relationship isn’t something I could’ve imagined and not because it was two young men. I also would never have imagined a divorced woman as president. But it worked in this laugh out loud, honest and steamy story.
I only added rom-com to my reading repertoire in the last few years. I don’t read a ton of it, and I’m thrilled that I finally got to this one. The narrator’s voice seemed much too old to voice these two young men and at first, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go on. The story kept me entertained enough that his voice didn’t matter. This is the first rom-com I’ve read about with two men and I loved it. The vulnerability of one character, who is just discovering his bi-sexuality and the other, who has kept it hidden since a young age, was incredibly well depicted. Yes, there are many steamy scenes so be warned.
The setting of the White House and Kensington Palace was grand. It was interesting to read about the secret service, the people behind the scenes, the spinning of stories and the complete lack of privacy the families on both continents endure. Overall, a fun and listen and I’m looking forward to the sequel.
Quotes I liked:
Sometimes you just jump and hope it’s not a cliff.”
“That’s the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.”
“Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves that they’re straight.”
“I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.
And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.
And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it? Sometimes, even now, I still can’t.”
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