Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

INTRODUCTION

Enemies to lovers is an interesting trope in common contemporary fiction. It makes us wonder, how did these two individuals who hated each other finally make up? What was the secret behind their unity? And sometimes, the answer to this is love.

ABOUT THE BOOK

People often say the phrase ‘opposites attract’, maybe that is the case here too. First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest equivalent to a prince in this side of the Atlantic. Alex, his sister and the Veep’s granddaughter make up the White house trio. A combination that President Ellen Claremont uses for marketing. Prince Henry on the other hand comes from true royal blood.

BLURB

When photos of an ugly confrontation between age old nemesis Alex and Henry leak out of the press, they are forced to fake a friendship. This friendship is significant to the world since it represents the alliance between American and British. The plan is to stage a friendship between the First Son and the Prince. But what happens when this friendship blossoms into love? Suddenly, Alex finds himself keeping a secret relationship that could ruin his mother’s elections.

THEMES

This funny and comical book has many themes, some of the best being:

• Love: in this book love is really staged at an awkward place. To reveal about his true love would ruin his mom’s chances at the election but hiding and lying about it can erode his relationship. What will Alex do?
• Reputation: a large part of this book deals with the fear of their relaitonship being outed. This fear stems from the place that they both come from very highly reputable families with powerufl standings in the world. This brings into the equation the question about reputation vs owning one’s own identity.

CHARACTERS

The central characters of this book are the First Son Alex and the crown Prince Henry. Their relaitonship might have started off on the wrong footing, but it did blossom into a beautiful bond later in the book. What makes these characters interesting is their very varied personalities that somehow begin to complement each other’s.

BEST LINES

This book about one’s own identity and facing the world is filled with raw and vulnerable statements such as:

• “That’s the choice. I love him, with all that, becauseof all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.”
• “Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves that they’re straight.”
• “You are”, he says, “the absolute worst idea I’ve ever had.”
• “But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable.”
• “Someone else’s choice doesn’t change who you are.”
• “To every person in search of somewhere to belong who happened to pick up this book, I hope you found a place in here, even if just for a few pages. You are loved. I wrote this for you. Keep fighting, keep making history, keep looking after one another.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Casey McQuiston is an author known for her romantic comedies. She is a pie enthusiast and loves writing stories about people falling in love. Her writing is laced with humor and brings joy to the reader’s experience of the book. While her books might be comical, she draws interesting and important themes in them such as identity, pride, representation and love.

CONCLUSION

Red, White and Royal Blue is a book everyone must read. This is not because of how funny it is but rather because of the deep value this book shares nestled beneath the humor. This is the value of self-love and self-acceptance. Being someone, whose identity is not accepted by the mass society is a difficult experience. In this book she seamlessly depicts how someone can, in fact, overcome this uneasiness.