Winner of the Goodreads Choice awards 2019, if you are active on instagram or Goodreads, I am sure you have come across Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. This was one of the books that I might have eventually gotten to but when my bookstagram friend Maebee suggested it as a buddy read, I decided to tag along. Set in an alternative timeline of 2020 with a Female President of USA and no pandemic, this is a hilarious book about political struggles, sexual identity and love. Take a look at the synopsis below and then I will share my thoughts.
First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
Content Notes: Depictions of homophobia, racism, anxiety. Sexual content.
Themes for Thought in
Red, White and Royal Blue
If you have been following me for a while, you know I don’t often recommend romance. The kind of romance I read is usually just a side kick with another genre – cozy mystery with a splash of relationships or space operas where romance offers motivation to save someone. Red, White and Royal Blue, while categorized as a romance, is so much more, though the relationship between Alex and Henry is the driver for a lot of what unfolds. Let’s start with the set up.
The 2020 of Red, White and Royal Blue
It’s the year of the Presidential elections and the big question is whether the current President, the first female to ever be elected, will get a second term. Tensions are high. The state of Texas, home of the President, will play a major role in deciding the election this year and nothing should go wrong. Alex is determined to help his mom. Growing up in a family of politicians, he has actively campaigned before and he isn’t going to take a backseat now.
At the wedding of the Prince of England, Alex meets his nemesis, Prince Henry (not the one getting married), and thought he hates him with a passion, their friendship soon turns into something more.
The setting of this world is progressive in so many ways and at the same time, the challenges still exist – can a member of a royal family or the first son of a nation truly be who they are, can they lead private lives without affecting international relationships and inducing bias in the political system?
At the heart of Red, White and Royal Blue is the question about privacy. Why some people’s personal lives are so much in the media that everything they do is read as tactical. When Alex reveals about his relationship to his mom, he is automatically pulled off her campaign. While she wants him to be happy, she cannot let something as big as personal relationships sway the people’s opinions about her. I understood the logic of these actions (they had nothing to do with Alex himself and his identity, and more with who he chose to be with), but at the same time, it put Alex in a tough spot to be make a choice between his professional endeavors and personal relationships.
On Characters and Plot
As serious as the above is, Red, White and Royal Blue is a light, hearty book. The characters are lovable, easy to relate to – Alex’s sister, June, is a phenomenal writer, their best friend Nora is a data analyst (like me!) and brilliant at research and tracking down and interpreting information. Royal they may be but Henry and his family are still people and really fun to read about. I appreciated the cast of characters in this book, each had their own role, different enough from one another – which shows the author’s craft at writing.
The plot is fast-paced and that I one of the things I loved about this book. It kept moving. Bad things happened and no one really mopped around but took action to get it sorted. Alex is a man of lists and gestures and he will not do nothing. I sometimes felt that the election campaign was too much of a focus for the book, but considering social media coverage and tensions are highest around that time of the year, it makes sense that Alex and Henry’s relationship would have received so much scrutiny at this time.
On Similarities with Ari and Dante
This month, and this year more than any other, I have read a lot of books with LGBTQ themes and narratives. Since Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe, this is the first I have picked with male protagonists and a gay relationship. While Ari and Dante’s story took place at an earlier age (they were teenagers) and in the 1970s, Alex and Henry are in their mid-late 20s in 2020. Red, White and Royal Blue felt like a much light hearted and more political version of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s book. Both books do a phenomenal job of describing the process of discovering something new about ourselves, living with that truth, figuring out what to do with it, and how to convey it to others. While Alex’s family was very supportive, Henry’s was not and the intricacies of being part of a family that does not truly accept you while at the same time, being a public figure were well portrayed by this book.
If you are looking for a light read next, I highly recommend checking out Red, White and Royal Blue! Divided into 15 chapters, this book will fly by really fast. There will be moments of laughter, some moments of misty eyes, and overall, not a book you will regret reading. 🙂 Let me know if you will pick it up or what you thought when you read it!
** Red, White and Royal Blue is now available in stores. I found my copy at the local library so please check out yours and support them. **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Cover image: Photo by Jacalyn Beales on Unsplash
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