Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - Book Review

During my three months in the Netherlands, I brought three books. Unfortunately, that was not enough. Luckily for me, my cousin had many other books, and one of them was a popular booktok book, Red White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston. And I must say, this book is the perfect love letter for enemies to lovers. McQuiston did an excellent job when it came to writing this book. 

The book is about Alex Claremont-Diaz, the President of the USA (a female - hopefully, one day this could be true) and Prince Henry of England. They both despise each other for very silly reasons, and after an incident at Prince Henry’s older brother’s wedding, the pair have to fix up the mess to make it seem like they do not hate each other. But a friendship that starts as a fake one actually ends up being more of a fairy tale.

I was quite surprised by how much I really enjoyed this book. I thought I wouldn't due to the popularity it had on TikTok. But, alas, I adored it. I thought it was cute, and McQuiston portrayed young love very well. I have seen that people think Casey McQuistion was not the right person to write this novel because they are a straight white woman. But they are wrong; not only are they not a woman, but they also are not straight. This author is bisexual and identifies as non-binary.  One of the main parts I really enjoyed about this novel is that Henry and Alex weren’t both gay. At first, I thought they were, but it was nice to see Alex being portrayed as bisexual, something that I believe McQuisition pulled from their real experience. It was beautifully written how Alex realised that he was, in fact, bisexual, and for many people who read this who might feel that they too could be bisexual, this is a perfect book to help you understand your true self – just like I and many people have gone through before.  I also love that McQuisition was not afraid to show certain scenes between two young men. I adore romance books, and in today’s society, it is becoming more acceptable to not be straight. But books that have romances between the same-sex sometimes have to delete scenes as they make people 'uncomfortable', when they wouldn't feel this was if it was the opposite sex. This is why I applaud McQuisition for not shying away, as it created a realistic relationship. 

Yet, saying all of this, there is one tiny formatting issue that I have. As this is set in today's society, texting is very popular. But the formatting for the text messages between Alex and Henry changes every so often. At the start, the messages were in bold writing. And then it changes, and the formatting looks like text messages are on a phone – where your message appears on the right side of the phone, and the other person’s messages appear on the left side. It changes between the two quite a few times. It would have been better if McQuisition stuck with one formatting rather than changing between the two.

Overall, I did love this New Adult book; I say New Adult and not Young Adult, as the characters are in their early twenties and are in their early adult years. Due to my positive reaction to this book, I will have to give it 4.5/5 stars.