Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Vermelho, Branco e Sangue Azul

This was an okay romance that shot itself in the foot by it's mishandling of both representation and politics.

To start with the main characters. Alex is a neat character but is terrible Mexican-American representation. McQuiston's idea of Mexican-American representation is listing a paragraph of stereotypes, mentioning food, and incorrectly explaining racism. Alex is a perfect example of the problems of viewing identities like race and ethnicity as only physical. A lot of the personality traits given to Alex would have been fine had McQuiston not written him as Mexican. The troublemaker, hot-head, impulsive, too passionate, uncultured, American personality plays into incredibly harmful stereotypes about Mexican American people especially those who are also POC. I don't this was intentional or malicious but was rather the result of McQuiston not adequately understanding how race and ethnicity impact characters and how they experience the world and how they will be viewed by others. Otherwise he was an okay and mostly likeable main protagonist.

Henry was .... less enjoyable. He was mostly sweet but was also incredibly microaggressive against Alex. The moment he called Alex a Neanderthal and was never corrected on how racist that was, I knew I would hate this character. He consistently puts down Alex's intelligence and implies that he struggles more than Alex which is incredibly ignorant and comes from an incredibly privileged position. He is the perfect example of a white liberal that is totally comfortable calling out his racist family and blatant racists but cannot confront his own racism.

Speaking of characters that cannot recognize their own racism, I would be remiss to not talk about Ellen. You can tell she was inspired by the likes of people like Hillary Clinton. She very clearly tokenizes her children and it's never given the weight needed and is in fact brushed aside. She does this to the point of actively jeopardizing one of her children's career. Her idea of feminist girlbossing actively ignores how she treats men of color and every conversation she had with Alex, June, and her ex-husband left me hoping she would lose her election and leave everyone alone.

I wish I could say anything about the side characters but not a single side character was at all distinct or memorable. They were all interchangeable in both attitude and in the way they spoke and were spoken to. In fact not a single character that works in politics actually talks like they work in politics to a distracting degree. Half of these characters would probably be fired or sued for a lack of professionalism and sexual harassment.

As a whole the representation of any of the POC in this book is not good and is either incredibly surface-level or riddled with stereotypes.

McQuiston's understanding of racism is abysmal and it shows. Every time the book attempts to discuss white supremacy, colonialism, it is so shallow and so clearly coming from a white author. Any discussion of how race impacts the way any prominent political figure who is a person of color is viewed by the media is virtually non-existent which is bizarre as we have seen how the British media treats POC who try to interact with the royal family. These problems especially impact my suspension of disbelief as the character who's point of view we're reading from is supposed to be a politically engaged POC who should be able to recognize these issues. I'm also fully convinced McQuiston doesn't understand the difference between race and ethnicity as McQuiston conflates being Mexican with inherently being a POC which isn't great.

So on it's mishandling of politics, McQuiston has said they are not familiar with politics and it shows. I'm totally fine with a political romance that doesn't get that into contemporary politics. In fact, I prefer it. As often many authors tend to not handle political issues with much sensitivity. McQuiston's insertions of politics are bizarre as they don't inform the rest of the plot and in fact the plot contradicts the political beliefs expressed in the book and kills any suspension of disbelief that allows you to ignore that both Alex and Henry want to work for genocidal colonial empires and profit from them. A perfect example of this is when Alex and Henry spend a few pages critiquing the British museum and the way countries like the UK have stolen many artifacts but then in the next scene they go on a cutesy date at the same museum. You can't have it both and honestly I would prefer if the political elements were toned down as McQuiston doesn't have the knowledge, skills, or range needed to discuss these issues.

The issue of sexual abuse by politicians was also not well-handled and felt tacked on.

As to what I actually liked, I think the romance itself is okay. The outing storyline was handled well and everything else about this book is fine. You can like this book, I just don't actively recommend for or against this book.

Content Warnings