Like, 100%, right? I’m in a Slack group and all the book club channel can talk about is this book so then it was on Kindle sale and I don’t even like romance but whatevs I bought it and then it was just supposed to be a mindless book in between Big Important books from the library but fuck it I wanted to read Red, White & Royal Blue ALL THE TIME because this book? Is the most adorable thing in the world.
McQuiston manages to balance pop culture snark, heartfelt romance, “if only” escapism, and juuuuust the right amount of twee-ness in this absolute hug of a book. The tl;dr is the adult son of the U.S. President falls in love with the younger prince of England and they are amazing. The longer plot is that in the brightest timeline, a whipsmart female Democrat from Texas sits in the White House (omg) and while her adult children are generally awesome, her 21-year-old son Alex has something of a one-sided feud with Henry, the younger prince of England. After Alex causes a teeny tiny international incident, the two are forced to play nice, secrets are revealed, we get something of a “enemies-to-lovers meets fake-relationship” mashup that works way better than it has any right to and overall? You want to read this book.
I had some minor gripes but they’re more technical than anything else. McQuiston namedrops The Hill‘s 50 Most Beautiful, which they’ve long since ceased. All the Texans drink Shiner all the time but the author is from Louisiana, she doesn’t know any better. Technical, you see what I mean. This is a book I am going to recommend again and again and again, even if sometimes only for the escapism.