Review: Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

I am not sure there was a way for Casey McQuiston to write a more enjoyable book. I had so so so much fun reading this book. It was a perfect blend of hilarity, romance, politics, and pop culture. 

“June, I’m the son of the President of the United States. Prince Henry is a figurehead of the British Empire. You can’t just call him my ‘arch nemesis,’” Alex says. He chews thoughtfully and adds, “‘Arch nemesis’ implies he’s actually a rival to me on any level and not, you know, a stuck-up product of inbreeding who probably jerks off to photos of himself.”

Our main character, Alex Claremont-Diaz, is the younger son of the President of the United States Ellen Claremont, a white Texan Democrat, and Oscar Diaz, a Mexican-American Democratic Senator for California. He is on the path to be the youngest congressman elected and clearly has the political pedigree preparing him. He is wonderfully relatable to my grudge-holding self (“Awesome, fuckin’ love doing things out of spite,” he says without a hint of sarcasm) and feels deeply real. We are thrown into his world and meet his two best friends: his sister June, a complete blessing to the world in my humble opinion, is a young professional trying to shirk some of the First Family connection to be seen as her own person, and Nora, his ex-girlfriend who is an irreverent genius who is the daughter of the VP. 
This book is straight-up hilarious. I was laughing out loud on basically every page, even the pages that made me cry. My other contender for an opening quote was:
“Listen,” Alex tells her, “royal weddings are trash, the princes that have royal weddings are trash, the imperialism that allows princes to exist at all is trash. It’s trash turtles all the way down.” 
“Is this your TED Talk?” June asks. “You do realize America is a genocidal empire too, right?” 
“Yes, June, but at least we have the decency not to keep a monarchy around,”
I adored the sense of humor in this book. It punches up; it is sarcastic; you will undoubtedly cackle at least twelve times while reading this book. I was constantly delighted by how funny this book is. 

Clearly, this is a romance, and oh my god, I was invested so hardcore in this romance. Casey McQuiston wrote this wonderful over-the-top situation enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance perfectly. I felt deep heartache, butterflies, and joy that was basically transcendent. The heightened situation only serves to make the reader that much more emotionally invested. You will fall in love with Alex as a human then fall in love with Henry with him as the book goes on. 

Henry is a wonderfully interesting layered love-interest; also, he is literally Prince Charming. You get to know him gradually. The reader knows how Henry is feeling before Alex in the most delightful masterful way, McQuiston really really does this romance justice. 

She also does the politics of this novel justice. My qualifications: BA in Political Science (trying to acquire admission to a graduate program soon) and a life of PoliSci nerddom. And You truly believe that this political landscape could be real with some slight changes to real life. Alex makes all the correct PoliSci nerd kid jokes and references, is obsessed with Nate Silver, RBG, and finds the vandalization of Mitch McConnell name plant to read "Bitch McConnell" exactly as funny as that truly is. She does an amazing job balancing a fictional world with modern-day politics, and choose to incorporate a lot of actual nonsense of today's world in similar ways to how they present in reality but is not doing an exact one-to-one here. It is a little bit of a political fairytale at times, but all good romances are a little bit of fairytale, and there is clearly a love story between Alex and his county in this book. 

I was very impressed by the way McQuiston handled the South, and specifically Texas. There is a deeply moving passage about Alex's relationship with Texas (there actually might be two or three of these) that brought me completely to tears. She really shows the way politics tend to give up on certain places or people, then when those places and people don't show up for them, they act as if that is justification for their past behavior. This alone would have made this book incredibly special. 

I also loved the pop culture references. They were done so deftly and really enriched the world. I did, at times, wonder exactly when this book's timeline separated from realities, and you get an answer but are mostly too swept up in the world to give it a ton of thought. Hamilton, 538, The West Wing, Harry Potter, tons of other things that I am sure I am forgetting. It was delightful. And so so many literary references. I cannot wait to go back through and catalog what I want to read based on characters recommendations. 

I was specifically moved by the relationship between Alex and Rafael Luna, an openly gay Independent senator from Colorado. I don't want to give anything about this relationship away, because watching it unfold is a wonderful experience, but I was constantly involved with this relationship. 

Alex had fascinating, interesting relationships with so many people. His relationships with his parents, his sister, Nora, his high school friend Liam, his mother's staffers, and of course, Henry. I cannot gush enough about how perfectly romantic this book is. I am bananas excited for the wlw romance the author is currently working on. I am so excited to be swept away in one of her books again. 

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads and finished reading it on March 23rd, 2019.

An ARC was provided by the publisher, St. Martin's Press; all opinions are my own!