A review by magicshop
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

funny hopeful lighthearted 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

2.75

Alex looks at him, taking in the whole parcel of him, the centuries of royal blood sitting under an antique Kensington chandelier, and he reaches out to touch his face and looks at his fingers and thinks about holding the Bible at his mother’s inauguration with the same hand. 

once again i am defeated by a blonde prince with family issues and a repressive nature. it's laurent of vere all the way down

writing style: 2.5/5
deeply, deeply average, however would be a solid 3-3.5 if the author didn't decide to shamelessly devolve into wattpad-ing the last 3rd of the book... for.... some reason???? like, there are for real some standout paragraphs and lines before that point, then suddenly i'm cringing my way through to the finish line???? casey what in the hell happened

characters: 3.75/5
certainly the best part of the entire thing. side characters are seriously charming (june beloved) and occasionally more interesting than the main boys lmao. alex had decent character development but suffered from being the only pov character. a sprinkle of henry's inner world would've potentially elevated this book into something greater. as it stands henry is still my favorite character, but i can see very clearly in my head how interesting a double pov would've been to read - alex is a very intense person in a very different way from henry (outwardly-focused vs. internally-focused) and the back-and-forth bouncing between their povs would have added room to breathe from alex's potent but often overwhelming way of thinking. as a latine person i also want to add that that particular point of representation didn't really do much for me. i'm not mexican so i'll leave the specifics well enough alone, but occasionally shoving spanish/portuguese into latine characters' speech (with the added, completely unnecessary bonus of making the character repeat themselves in english after - for the benefit of absolutely no one but the assumed white and english-speaking reader) and using their heritage to emphasize political and discriminatory points is... not good enough. i want to see more culture, more differences in behavior, more. make me believe the character is latine, don't just tell me and then make him act white 99% of the time. that's not to say i don't understand the fact that alex grew up in a mostly white-dominated environment and thus adopts the same behavior, or that he's factually half-white and therefore entitled to that same behavior. but given the kind of person alex is, a full-fledged, very leftist, incredibly compassionate do-gooder, i feel like he would have gone out of his way to connect with his mexican background as much as possible. and we saw very little of that.

plot: 2/5
i'm being generous since i acknowledge that i don't have a full understanding of the politics of either the us or britain. the romance carried the story for the most part, and
once that was resolved and the focus shifted entirely to the election
i would've been bored out of my mind if not for how fucking funny the aforementioned wattpad writing was at times. rushed, half-assed, extremely biased and optimistic, not to mention outright irresponsible, depictions of the workings of intra- and inter-country politics. the entire concept of the prince of wales all but openly supporting any single american presidency candidate. the cartoonish villainy of every single republican, who by the way are also complete strategic idiots on top of being unanimously evil. i can accept the romance panning out far more optimistically than it would ever be in real life, we all deserve our escapism (especially queer and other disenfranchised people), but i draw the line at reductive ultraliberal fantasies. just. don't read this book for the plot or the politics 🫡

personal enjoyment: 3.5/5
for all its faults, rwrb did pull me straight out of a months-long reading slump. i read it very fast, for no reason other than mcquiston's writing flows very easily off the page and is really good at being funny when it counts. i can't say i enjoyed the entire ride, or even most of it, but it wasn't exactly bumpy either. more like the train itself was made entirely of partially rotten wood and i never knew when the floor would give out on me. which it did, way too many times.

ending: 2.5/5
mcquiston turned her attention back to alex and henry at the very last minute, which she should never have stopped doing in the first place, and so the very last few pages turned out to be pretty cute and satisfying enough as a wrap-up. i recommend skipping the last 3 or so chapters if you don't want to activate your gag reflex, tho. the line "whoever wins texas wins the election" will haunt my nightmares forever as one of the worst pieces of writing i've ever laid eyes on. etc.


honestly, if you're gonna read this you might as well skip the heavier politics bits for your own mental health, assuming you have any knowledge of how things actually work in the real world at all. i have some affection for this book due to its likable cast and the way it manhandled me straight out of that fat reading slump, but that's rose-colored circumstantial glasses and i fully admit it. rwrb is simply not an outstanding piece of literature, or even a good one, and to be fair, it doesn't have to be - if all you want is escapism and you're willing to overlook everything i mentioned in this review (and probably more i forgot), or it all doesn't bother you the same way it does me, then you'll likely have a good time. sometimes that's more than enough.
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