Title: Red, White & Royal Blue
Author: Casey McQuiston
Rating: ★★★½

“The first slide says: SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION WITH FOREIGN MONARCHS: A GRAY AREA. Alex wonders if it’s too late to swan dive off the roof.”

What is this book about? Red, White & Royal Blue is a warm, amusing story about self-discovery and an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance between Alex, the First Son of the United States, and Henry, the Prince of England.

What did I like? Who could help but love these characters? Alex and Henry were such soft, tender-hearted men and I felt giddy the entire time as their relationship and feelings unfolded between them. I also really enjoyed how funny the book is. It’s no secret I’m a big fan of rom-coms, and some of the one-liners in this book were absolute gold. 

“How dare Henry come into Alex’s house looking like the goddamn James Bond offspring that he is, drink red wine with the prime minister, and act like he didn’t slip Alex the tongue and ghost him for a month.”

What didn’t I like? For whatever reason, this book seemed to really drag. I think it’s because at some parts of the book, the plot seemed to stall out which left me inpatient for it to get on with already. I also found some of the political aspects of the story to be unrealistic and overly-romanticised for the sake of the novel, which is fine-it’s fiction, but bothered me enough that I don’t think I enjoyed the overall story as fully because of it.

Overall thoughts: Red, White & Royal Blue is a heart-warming, romantic story about two young men coming to grips with who they are and who they want to be. As always, I absolutely loved the hate-to-love aspect of the story and Alex and Henry are such wonderful characters it’s hard not to root for them throughout the book.