Red, White & Royal Blue

Author: Casey McQuiston
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin (May 14, 2019)
Paperback, 421 pages
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Summary
What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, 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 the 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 family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable 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 campaign and upend two nations and begs 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 be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.

Review
I really struggled with this being written in the third person present tense – like, to the point where I almost DNF’d it in the first few chapters because the writing style was just too hard to connect with. In the end, I’m really glad I pushed through because this is a fabulous book. It really reads like it should have been written in the first person present tense from Alex’s POV (and I just kept switching it in my head so that’s how I read it in the beginning). Had that different style choice been made, this would have been a solid 5 star read for me. That being said, I DID manage to get used to it (if not actually LIKING it) by about halfway through the book, so if you’re also finding the third person present tense off-putting, just stick with it! It’s worth it. It was a little too on-the-nose with some of the political stuff, but it was written BEFORE Trump’s election. I like McQuiston’s alternate reality better…