Red, White & Royal Blue

February 24, 2020 2:26 PM - by Casey McQuiston

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
posted by dinty_moore (6 comments total)

I was stuck in bed with a fever all weekend and this book finally came in from the library, and it's the perfect comfort read for right now, coming from a better universe.

When the powerpoint scene came up I had to stop and text a friend.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:29 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm really looking forward to the movie of this, because the book is written in such a way as to ease the transition to a screenplay as much as possible, and I think I'd enjoy it much better then. I am a target market for m/m romances, but I couldn't hang with the writing, so I didn't finish it beyond the Kindle sample. I did want to live in that alternate universe, though.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:57 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

My wife read this book and thought it was really cute.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:07 PM on February 24, 2020

The book was charming, even though I am generally not into m/m because I am generally not into books where no main character is a woman. I will say that a world where Ron Chernow wrote his book about Hamilton, Obama was president, private email servers are relevant, etc, but where Hamilton the musical did not exist strained credulity for me. Is this a very weird place for my immersion to break? Yes.
posted by jeather at 6:08 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

It is so so so charming! I have read it twice by accident in that I picked it up to give to a friend, opened the first chapter and after half an hour said, borrow another book please, I am re-reading this. I have no idea how they will handle the alternative universe NoTrump for a film, but I am absolutely keen to see the casting. And the kissing.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:45 AM on February 25, 2020

Oh my gosh I HATED this book. In part because I found the premise sooooo cute but the execution of it so disappointing. It read like the author was in first draft mode of just writing everything out, but then no one ever went back and edited. The characters started out nuanced but got extremely unrealistic and fake-feeling as the story went on. It’s not even that I don’t like romance novels—I do, and I love well-done fanfiction—but to me this lacked a connection with how real people feel and think.
posted by sallybrown at 7:59 AM on February 26, 2020 [1 favorite]