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A review by morrxson
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
If I could give this book a lower rating, I would. Where do I even begin with this.
The premise itself is fine. I don’t really have a problem with the idea. The execution, however, is abhorrent. There seems to be a lack of basic understanding for how politics and international relationships actually work in the modern age. While yes, a relationship between the president’s child and a royal member of the family would likely be quite the juicy news for the media (and using presidential servers for this is just a drama waiting to happen), the way it’s blown into this out of proportion drama that everyone cares about is exhausting. Political commentary in this book boils down to: Democrat good, Republican bad, Royal Family good and recognise how terrible they’ve been in history except for the Queen. This isn’t political commentary, it’s making the characters one dimensional and easy to digest. The understanding of politics is baseline at best and often tries to have these mic drop moments that ultimately fall back into black and white thinking about American politics. Yes, it’s a romance novel, but it has a heavy emphasis on politics, too.
The writing is also atrocious. “I fucking love you” and “kind of obsessed” were lines that consistently showed up and just took me out of the book. The constant pop culture references are shoved down your throat and I imagine that most of them, in about ten years time, will be unknown by the next generation of readers. If your book’s humour is that reliant on pop culture, it’s not going to be timeless. It’s going to be dated and confusing. The smut scenes are confusing and poorly written - it doesn’t need to be graphic, but when the reader’s confused on what position they’re in, there’s a problem.
Now onto Alex and Henry themselves: there’s no really strong relationship between the two. It’s a lot of making out and sex, with romantic quotes from questionable historical figures, and eventually getting to a little bit of depth with each character - but even this is a little scratch. But Alex and Henry are NEVER bad people. They’re not flawed - and this runs through the ending of the book. I don’t like using the word Gary Stu often, because protagonists often have to have certain backstories and personalities to make a story work, but Alex is the definition of it. Not to mention how he and his sister blatantly ignore their own privilege as the children of the president to feel more sorry for themselves. It reads like a wattpad story from 2016. Of course when you know that this is based off of that Facebook movie, that makes a bit more sense.
There’s weird stereotyping throughout the book which never sits right, either. It’s also pretty obvious that the author has minimal knowledge about British dialect and culture.
All in all, would I recommend this to anyone? No. If you want a nothing romance that reminds you of 2016 tumblr in all its pretentiousness and fandom culture, then this book is for you. But I’d give it a hard pass and tell you just to watch the movie. It’s less painful, somehow.
The premise itself is fine. I don’t really have a problem with the idea. The execution, however, is abhorrent. There seems to be a lack of basic understanding for how politics and international relationships actually work in the modern age. While yes, a relationship between the president’s child and a royal member of the family would likely be quite the juicy news for the media (and using presidential servers for this is just a drama waiting to happen), the way it’s blown into this out of proportion drama that everyone cares about is exhausting. Political commentary in this book boils down to: Democrat good, Republican bad, Royal Family good and recognise how terrible they’ve been in history except for the Queen. This isn’t political commentary, it’s making the characters one dimensional and easy to digest. The understanding of politics is baseline at best and often tries to have these mic drop moments that ultimately fall back into black and white thinking about American politics. Yes, it’s a romance novel, but it has a heavy emphasis on politics, too.
The writing is also atrocious. “I fucking love you” and “kind of obsessed” were lines that consistently showed up and just took me out of the book. The constant pop culture references are shoved down your throat and I imagine that most of them, in about ten years time, will be unknown by the next generation of readers. If your book’s humour is that reliant on pop culture, it’s not going to be timeless. It’s going to be dated and confusing. The smut scenes are confusing and poorly written - it doesn’t need to be graphic, but when the reader’s confused on what position they’re in, there’s a problem.
Now onto Alex and Henry themselves: there’s no really strong relationship between the two. It’s a lot of making out and sex, with romantic quotes from questionable historical figures, and eventually getting to a little bit of depth with each character - but even this is a little scratch. But Alex and Henry are NEVER bad people. They’re not flawed - and this runs through the ending of the book. I don’t like using the word Gary Stu often, because protagonists often have to have certain backstories and personalities to make a story work, but Alex is the definition of it. Not to mention how he and his sister blatantly ignore their own privilege as the children of the president to feel more sorry for themselves. It reads like a wattpad story from 2016. Of course when you know that this is based off of that Facebook movie, that makes a bit more sense.
There’s weird stereotyping throughout the book which never sits right, either. It’s also pretty obvious that the author has minimal knowledge about British dialect and culture.
All in all, would I recommend this to anyone? No. If you want a nothing romance that reminds you of 2016 tumblr in all its pretentiousness and fandom culture, then this book is for you. But I’d give it a hard pass and tell you just to watch the movie. It’s less painful, somehow.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia