Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston

Hi all my fabulous ladies and gentle-worms!

How are you all?

My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworm.

Before I get into any book reviews, I have one thing to say to you all …

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope you are all having a wonderful December so far and are enjoying those advent calendars.

But back to business.

Today’s book that I am reviewing is Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Date Published: 14 May 2019

Version: Paperback

Pages: 421

Genres: Romance, Contemporary, LGBT, YA, Fiction

It’s been a while since I read it, in fact I read it before I read I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver, but I loved that book so much that I wrote about it first and this one got shoved to the side.

But the reality is I loved this one a lot too. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was simply amazing. However, unfortunately, I don’t seem to have wrote many notes about what I thought … which is a shame really.

I do, on the other hand, have one tricky note highlighting a paragraph from the book, which looking back at it sums up a lot of the beginning of the story.

“Look,” Zahra says, taking a drag from her massive stainless steel thermos of coffee. “Both sides need to come out of this looking good, and the only way to do that is to make it look like your little slap-fight at the wedding was some homo-erotic frat bro mishap, okay? So, you can hate the heir to the throne all you want, write mean poems about him in your diary, but the moment you see a camera, you act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing.”

Did you get all that?

Actually, looking back that sums up more than just the beginning on the book.

To put it simply eventually he stops acting like he likes him and it becomes real. They start by texting each other to make sure that they are both on track with the lies they are telling and then they start texting about other things and one thing lead to another and (to quote mamma mia) dot dot dot.

I love these boys. So young and so loyal to their respective countries.

For any of you outside of the UK, or unaware, we are currently in a run up to a general election. In fact it’s next Thursday. And I wish that our political campaigns were as (I’m not sure clean is the right word, but it’s pretty close. Honourable?) honourable as they make theirs it to be in the book.

I grew with a father who says he is politically aware, rather than active. He always watches the entire series of the West Wing all the way through at least once a year and slowly, since being about 8 years old, I have become more and more interested. I follow what is going on in international politics so this aspect of the book really appealed to me.

And maybe I’m slightly too innocent, or just a product of my generation, but I don’t think that someone’s sexual orientation has anything to do with politics. Thus I appreciated the way that McQuinston dealt with that theme in the book.

Now onto my usual question of favourite characters. And honestly, I don’t think I can choose. Alex is a boy that finds himself stuck between two worlds, in more than one ways than one. Henry is a boy that just wants to be true to himself. June wants to be her own person and Nora is just Nora. Bea is trying to get through one day at a time and Pez … well, let’s just leave Pez out of it. I couldn’t choose between these 6 for my favourite characters. Nor could I choose any of the adults , though Zahra and Shaan may be very high on the list just for a surprise that I will leave out use to SPOILERS.

And that is may review of the book. I think it maybe one of my top ten favourite books that I have read this year and definitely goes onto any re-read list that I will ever make.

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think down in the comments. Have you read any similar books to this one that you think I will enjoy? Again, leave a comment.

Thanks!