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cherry__bomb 's review for:
Red, White & Royal Blue
by Casey McQuiston
getting the stuff i liked out of the way: i like june, henry was Fine, some of the one liners made me chuckle, and there was this bit in between chapters 9-10 that was almost good. the writing somewhat shines when it focuses on the romance and nothing else. alex and henry have such different voices it's kind of pleasing, especially in the emails
i'm not the right audience for this. i'm middle eastern and my taste is so different to this. not to mention the worst possible timing i could have read this in. i only read it because a friend that i love has recommended it to me and as much as i love him i will never listen to him again.
the most glaring problem with is alex himself. i kid you not i have at least 20 notes on my book saying 'get his ass' when a character calls him out on literally anything. somehow we are meant to believe that he is this socially smart guy when he is quite literally the most obnoxious person in this and that says something. he's written to be charismatic and smart but how the lamest person you know thinks people like him act. we are told he's charming and kind but this is the same guy that talks to an ex situationship-esque person after years just to ask him about his own sexuality. only for them to make up haphazardly at the end without any prior indication. this happens with phillip too but the book has decided that he is a one note character that went from cartoonishly racist to people pleaser that did too much. alex shaming other first children because he 'actually cares' and 'wants to help people' by becoming a... senator is very characteristic of him. i don't know how we're supposed to believe henry fell in love with him and his obsessive assholery and condescension of the fact that henry is a person too. he's also just plain stupid. and he still does not have friends because none of his new friendships were ever expanded upon. they're as good as oomfs in law. and alex and henry are beyond uncareful even for a regular gay couple without their positions. him and hamilton have one thing in common and it's participation in the US hegemony.
alex aside, the thing that peeves me the most is how disconnected everything is. nobody cares about the first children (ellen using her children on purpose was kind of hinted at but it paints the first children as something more than it actually is and it's not like that plot point is ever followed up). the quippy one liners about america being a genocidal empire as if the call isn't coming from inside the white house. i'm supposed to believe these characters are Just Like Me because they watch the most popular franchises on the planet. the british stereotypes that could have been very easily avoided with a simple search. it's really hard to make me sympathise with the british but when jaffa cakes and thw word 'bloody' are brought up a million times it makes me go insane. the first children being treated like they're jfk w security and NDAs. the idiotic israel line. ellen joking about the cia. ellen in general. the politics feel fanfiction-ified and it's so bad to read as someone that likes history and geopolitics. also maybe it's just me but pez feels like a mildly racist caricature.
not to mention, the royalty doesn't even work like that. henry is worrying about inheriting the throne when he's the 4th in line and that's without henry or bea having kids. he even mentions being a spare after talking about inheritance (even though that's bea anyways). royals cannot abdicate unless they are a sitting monarch but henry can very easily give up his royal duties so it's very hard to feel sympathetic for him sometimes. also they cannot be taken off the succession line unless they are catholics. jane austen being treated like she's this rebellious figure henry would get massacred by the press over if he mentioned her as his favourite author when she's ON THE 10 POUND. as i mentioned britain is so cartoonish here. the royals are either very archaic in their speech or they speak like a regular working class brit showing the sheer lack of research (also 'mate' being repeated 859209 times). but it's not like the southern accent is distinctive to mcquiston showing it's only 'ya'll' and nothing more. henry also cannot do anything lgbt related because royals are required to stay 'neutral' meaning those shelters wouldn't exist in real life. royals are actually allowed to wear colours and elizabeth is even said to do lots of colour on PURPOSE. royals are not forced to enlist even though it is encouraged. so much stuff that could have been easily researched. what a lazy slop of a book.
the prose is kind of awful. descriptions give detail to all the wrong things (especially organs and clothes) and i'm subjected to utterances like 'His face is infuriatingly symmetrical', 'girl sounds' and 'the lines of him'. very much tell not show. mcquiston has this really grating habit of repeating things and while it does work when it's needed it just feels like too much most of the time. sometimes they don't even make sense. the dialogue doesn't even feel like a human wrote it. the forced 'this is casual' plotline kind of makes me lose it because it was seriously unneeded and the time could have been better used to flesh out the side characters like phillip, bea, amy, cash, zahra or even june and nora (notice how it's mostly the female characters that are interchangeable despite june's somewhat fine unfinished arc. i like how catherine's depression went away in one day). the sex is extremely inaccurate and uncomfortable to read and happened way too often. gay sex cannot be that fun. and this cannot have seriously been checked by an editor and still published with all the awkward and clunky sentences. it feels so unintentional, like it's just copying better books. it's ultimately indecisive about how it views everything too which makes it even more insidious. not even just on a political level; so much stuff contradicts what happened before. i don't even wanna talk about the pacing.
i really want gay people to want better for themselves. every time i read a mainstream gay book it turns out to be mediocre at best and rwrb at worst. we really can do better than imperialist garbage that worships america (esp the democratic party) and does the same w the monarchy under a thin veil of pretend uninformed criticism (the whole english monarchs were uniquely racist but not my american presidents!). my next read better be good.
i'm not the right audience for this. i'm middle eastern and my taste is so different to this. not to mention the worst possible timing i could have read this in. i only read it because a friend that i love has recommended it to me and as much as i love him i will never listen to him again.
the most glaring problem with is alex himself. i kid you not i have at least 20 notes on my book saying 'get his ass' when a character calls him out on literally anything. somehow we are meant to believe that he is this socially smart guy when he is quite literally the most obnoxious person in this and that says something. he's written to be charismatic and smart but how the lamest person you know thinks people like him act. we are told he's charming and kind but this is the same guy that talks to an ex situationship-esque person after years just to ask him about his own sexuality. only for them to make up haphazardly at the end without any prior indication. this happens with phillip too but the book has decided that he is a one note character that went from cartoonishly racist to people pleaser that did too much. alex shaming other first children because he 'actually cares' and 'wants to help people' by becoming a... senator is very characteristic of him. i don't know how we're supposed to believe henry fell in love with him and his obsessive assholery and condescension of the fact that henry is a person too. he's also just plain stupid. and he still does not have friends because none of his new friendships were ever expanded upon. they're as good as oomfs in law. and alex and henry are beyond uncareful even for a regular gay couple without their positions. him and hamilton have one thing in common and it's participation in the US hegemony.
alex aside, the thing that peeves me the most is how disconnected everything is. nobody cares about the first children (ellen using her children on purpose was kind of hinted at but it paints the first children as something more than it actually is and it's not like that plot point is ever followed up). the quippy one liners about america being a genocidal empire as if the call isn't coming from inside the white house. i'm supposed to believe these characters are Just Like Me because they watch the most popular franchises on the planet. the british stereotypes that could have been very easily avoided with a simple search. it's really hard to make me sympathise with the british but when jaffa cakes and thw word 'bloody' are brought up a million times it makes me go insane. the first children being treated like they're jfk w security and NDAs. the idiotic israel line. ellen joking about the cia. ellen in general. the politics feel fanfiction-ified and it's so bad to read as someone that likes history and geopolitics. also maybe it's just me but pez feels like a mildly racist caricature.
not to mention, the royalty doesn't even work like that. henry is worrying about inheriting the throne when he's the 4th in line and that's without henry or bea having kids. he even mentions being a spare after talking about inheritance (even though that's bea anyways). royals cannot abdicate unless they are a sitting monarch but henry can very easily give up his royal duties so it's very hard to feel sympathetic for him sometimes. also they cannot be taken off the succession line unless they are catholics. jane austen being treated like she's this rebellious figure henry would get massacred by the press over if he mentioned her as his favourite author when she's ON THE 10 POUND. as i mentioned britain is so cartoonish here. the royals are either very archaic in their speech or they speak like a regular working class brit showing the sheer lack of research (also 'mate' being repeated 859209 times). but it's not like the southern accent is distinctive to mcquiston showing it's only 'ya'll' and nothing more. henry also cannot do anything lgbt related because royals are required to stay 'neutral' meaning those shelters wouldn't exist in real life. royals are actually allowed to wear colours and elizabeth is even said to do lots of colour on PURPOSE. royals are not forced to enlist even though it is encouraged. so much stuff that could have been easily researched. what a lazy slop of a book.
the prose is kind of awful. descriptions give detail to all the wrong things (especially organs and clothes) and i'm subjected to utterances like 'His face is infuriatingly symmetrical', 'girl sounds' and 'the lines of him'. very much tell not show. mcquiston has this really grating habit of repeating things and while it does work when it's needed it just feels like too much most of the time. sometimes they don't even make sense. the dialogue doesn't even feel like a human wrote it. the forced 'this is casual' plotline kind of makes me lose it because it was seriously unneeded and the time could have been better used to flesh out the side characters like phillip, bea, amy, cash, zahra or even june and nora (notice how it's mostly the female characters that are interchangeable despite june's somewhat fine unfinished arc. i like how catherine's depression went away in one day). the sex is extremely inaccurate and uncomfortable to read and happened way too often. gay sex cannot be that fun. and this cannot have seriously been checked by an editor and still published with all the awkward and clunky sentences. it feels so unintentional, like it's just copying better books. it's ultimately indecisive about how it views everything too which makes it even more insidious. not even just on a political level; so much stuff contradicts what happened before. i don't even wanna talk about the pacing.
i really want gay people to want better for themselves. every time i read a mainstream gay book it turns out to be mediocre at best and rwrb at worst. we really can do better than imperialist garbage that worships america (esp the democratic party) and does the same w the monarchy under a thin veil of pretend uninformed criticism (the whole english monarchs were uniquely racist but not my american presidents!). my next read better be good.