Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Red, White & Royal Blue

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

11 reviews

azileotulp's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is the second time I've tried to read this book. The first time I stopped about 100 pages in. While I made it through this time, it was still definitely a struggle to get into it. As a whole, I would say I liked the book, but it has a few issues that are definitely holding it back for me.

First big issue: POV. I genuinely cannot fathom why this book was written in the third person. Don't get me wrong, I can really appreciate a third person book (although I typically prefer first person). In fact, two of my favorite books of all time are in the third person. However, it just did not work in this book. I just feel like third person perspectives in romances don't work for me at all. (Do you know how many times I had to read the words "Alex" and "Henry" on each page because the word "he" couldn't be used?) I think the novel would have worked a lot better and been easier to get into if it had been in the first person. It would be even better if it had been dual POV. I'm not just saying that because I love a good dual POV book, but I think it also would have prevented the book from dragging, which it did in a lot of places.

Second big issue: Characters. My favorite part of romance is falling in love with the characters, which I usually find very easy to do. By the end of this book, I only really loved one character (Henry <3) and liked two others (June and Alex). I don't really hate any of the other characters (except Richards, of course), but I'm just totally neutral on them. I feel like there were just too many of them to be honest. There were multiple instances where the book was discussing certain characters that I had to really rack my brain to try to remember. I feel like this is another reason the first person POV would have worked better for me. I feel like it's a lot easier to love characters when you're inside the mind of someone who does.

Third big issue: Smut. I swear this book has some of the most confusing smut I've ever read. Now, it's not like I actively wanted there to be super graphic smut. I'm really not a huge fan of it in general, so I won't seek out books that contain it, but I also won't avoid it if it's there. My real issue is that it seemed like this book couldn't decide if it wanted to be Young Adult or New Adult, and the smut teeters on the line between those two. It just frustrates me that it was far too explicit to actually be a Young Adult book, but not explicit enough for it to be understandable. It felt like every action that happened was stated so vaguely that I couldn't even imagine the scene. Every time I got to a smut scene, I had to read it at least three times before I could at least kind of form a picture of what was going on, and eventually I just stopped trying.

Those are the main things I would say hold the book back. There are definitely others,

like the lack of resolution for June's storyline with either Pez or Nora and the very dumb reason Alex hated Henry

but none of them were as bad as the three I listed above. But of course, I didn't hate this book: I gave it a 3.5. (Anything higher than a 3 is a book I consider to be at least okay.) So, what did it have going for it that made up for the previously mentioned issues?

First big strength: Humor. This is actually one of the funniest romances I've ever read. Other romance books usually get an exhale out of me, but very rarely an actual laugh. This book made me genuinely laugh twice. That might not sound like a lot to other people, but it definitely is for me. I feel like the characters played off of each other really well, and there were just a lot of scenarios that led to some really funny moments.

My favorite moment is after Alex comes out to his mom (which includes telling her about him and Henry) and she makes a whole presentation about it. I actually died.

Second big strength: The last quarter. So, you know how I said this book was really hard to get into? That includes a lot of the middle section unfortunately. However, when there were about 100 pages left, the

outing

storyline really caught my attention.

It had me really questioning how the emails got out. Did Rafael actually betray Alex? How would Ellen deal with the aftermath? How would Queen Mary?

It was totally captivating and made up for a lot of the boredom I felt during the rest of the book.

Overall, this definitely isn't one of the best books I've read. It's not even close. That being said, it's very charming in a lot of ways and I can definitely see why so many people love it. If you think you can get past the issues I talked about, then this could very well be a great book for you.

Content Warnings

haloblues's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

So it's 11am and I haven't slept in almost 24 hours, and that may have some sort of influence on how I'm feeling right now.

But all I know is that I had to take a break before going into the last chapter of this book, because I was in my kitchen, making a cup of tea, and it hit me just how fucking deeply this was touching me as a gay kid who grew up in a less-than-ideal environment. I was standing there at my kettle thinking about how indescribable it felt to read something so hopeful, so joyful, so everything-I-ever-wanted. And when I did psych myself up to getting to that last chapter and finishing it, I put the book down and out of nowhere I started crying. And that's a hell of an achievement, because I'm on medication that makes it damn hard to cry.

The afterword was the icing on top of the emotional fuckfest cake. You did exactly as you were hoping to. Thank you.

Details: Fixed POV, third-person, present tense
Favourite character: Boringly but for good reason, Alex and Henry
Happy ending?: Yes

Favourite quotes:

"Do either of y'all know what a viscount is?" June is saying, halfway through a cucumber sandwich. "I've met, like, five of them, and I keep smiling politely as if I know what it means when they say it. Alex, you took comparative international governmental relational things. Whatever. What are they?"

"I think it's that thing when a vampire creates an army of crazed sex waifs and starts his own ruling body," he says.

"That sounds right," Nora says.

"So, you can hate the heir to the throne all you want, write mean poems about him in your diary, but the minute you see a camera, you act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing."

"Have you met Henry?" Alex says. "How am I supposed to do that? He has the personality of a cabbage."

Without missing a beat, he blurts out, "Bring them to the house."

"Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?"

"Put them in my room. I don't care."

She outright laughs. "No."

"How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom."

"I'm not putting the turkeys in your room."

"Put the turkeys in my room."

"No."

"Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room--"

That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets.

THEY KNOW, he texts Henry. THEY KNOW I HAVE ROBBED THEM OF FIVE-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS TO SIT IN A CAGE IN MY ROOM, AND THE MINUTE I TURN MY BACK THEY ARE GOING TO FEAST ON MY FLESH.

Cornbread stares emptily back at him from inside a huge crate next to Alex's couch. A farm vet comes by once every few hours to check on them. Alex keeps asking if she can detect a lust for blood.

"History, huh? Bet we could make some."

"The phrase "see attached bibliography" is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me."

"Why'd you pick him?" Alex asks. "I remember that campaign. We met a lot of people who would've made great politicians. Why wouldn't you pick someone easier to elect?"

"You mean, why'd I roll the rice on the gay one?"

Alex concentrates on keeping his face neutral.

"I wasn't gonna put it like that," he says, "but yeah."

"Raf ever tell you his parents kicked him out when he was sixteen?"

Alex winces. "I knew he had a hard time before college, but he didn't specify."

"Yeah, they didn't take the news so well. He had a rough couple of years, but it made him tough. The night we met him, it was the first time he'd been back in California since he got kicked out, but he was damn sure gonna come in to support a brother out of Mexico City. It was like when Zahra showed up at your mom's office in Austin and said she wanted to prove the bastards wrong. You know a fighter when you see one."

He takes his phone out and lines up a shot, Henry standing there all soft and rumpled and smiling next to one of the most exquisite works of art in the world.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking a picture of a national gay landmark," Alex tells him. "And also a statue."

"Give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. There's so much of you."

"You listen to me," she says. Her jaw is set, ironclad. It's the game face he's seen her use to stare down Congress, to cow autocrats. Her grip on his hand is steady and strong. He wonders, half-hysterically, if this is how it felt to charge into war under Washington. "I am your mother. I was your mother before I was ever the president, and I'll be your mother long after, to the day they put me in the ground and beyond this earth. You are my child. So, if you're serious about this, I'll back your play."

Alex is silent.

But the debates, he thinks. But the general.

Her gaze is hard. He knows better than to say either of those things. She'll handle it.

"So," she says. "Do you feel forever about him?"

And there's no room left to agonize over it, nothing left to do but say the thing he's known all along.
"Yeah," he says. "I do."

Ellen Claremont exhales slowly, and she grins a small, secret grin, the crooked, unflattering one she never uses in public, the one he knows best from when he was a kid around her knees in a small kitchen in Travis Country.

"Then fuck it."

"So, imagine we're all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there's that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That's the maximum depth of feeling you've ever experienced. And then the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it's alright because that thing will happen to me when I'm older and wiser, and I'll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, the worst possible feeling, won't seem so terrible.

But it happens to you when you're young. It happens when your mind isn't even fully done cooking -- when you've barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you'll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn't just stop at the bottom -- it goes all the way down."

Content Warnings

kaydeedickins's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Content Warnings

captainoliimar's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

kimveach's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this romance. The enemies-to-lovers and inconvenient-love tropes worked. This is the perfect book for anyone who wasn't thrilled with the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election. The revisionist history takes you to a very happy place.

This book would be rated R for language (I had to look up a couple of phrases in Urban Dictionary) and sex (you definitely know what is happening.)

Content Warnings

meleac07's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is truly a masterpiece of a book. It was simultaneously hilarious, heartbreaking, and vividly wonderful in every sense of the word. I am utterly enamored.

Content Warnings