Red, White & Royal Blue

Book 41 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read from June 20 - 27

Red, White & Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2019

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.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

My Opinion

5 stars

A friend gave this to me because she saw it in the bookstore and knew it was something I'd like.  It worked out perfectly to take it on vacation because a) it's a great, light vacation read and b) one of the places we visited was London so I had the extra fun of reading about places I was actually seeing at the time.

Sure, it's over-the-top but not too much.  I loved the banter between all the characters and I would like to know what happens next so another book now please and thank you.

Quote from the Book

"It helps they've given People an exclusive - a few generic quotes about how much Alex "cherishes" his friendship with Henry and their "shared life experience" as sons of world leaders. Alex thinks their main shared life experience is probably wishing they could set that quote adrift on the ocean between them and watch it drown."

"Nah. Come on. I don't think this election is gonna hinge on an email server." [gotta admit, this tongue-in-cheek observation stung a little]