This book has points of hope, fear, friendship, love, and politics. My first thought when I finished this book was it is everything. It is very well written. I really enjoyed how the author showed the various way Alex and Henry communicated as their fake friendship began until they were in a full blown hidden relationship. The side characters (friends and family) make this story even more well rounded and in general this debut deserves all the praise and more.

This book is the queer rom-com of my heart, to be honest. It’s funny, hopeful, and just an absolute delight of a book. I loved the way relationship between Alex and Henry developed. I also have to say that as a queer woman, I thought the queer rep was well-done, and it really resonated for me. There were a few minor timeline issues, but overall an excellent read. 4.5 stars

2 1\2 stars
Romance Comedy I find are either a hit or miss. This story is a romance between English Royal and American Political Prince. The characters are what readers expect from LGBT stories right now and the political climate. The author uses this book as her platform taking away from the story readers would enjoy. The writing is what readers expect from this genre with sassy characters and snarky attitudes.

Thank you to Netgalley ad the publisher Martin Griffin for the advance copy of Casey McQuiston Red, White and Royal Blue

I got the notification that I was going to be able to read an advanced copy on my lunch break at work. I didn’t put down the book for the rest of my break. I just spent the last few hours finishing it and it was so great. Reading as Alex came into his sexuality and fell in love with Henry was so beautiful. The author truly created a beautiful character. Alex is slightly neurotic and very drive and it was wonderful seeing him grow and accept it and be able to calm down and enjoy life more.
Henry was truly Prince Charming. Being able to read what being a gay royal would be like was so sad and captivating to experience. Henry was kind and funny and so sad. I kind of fell in love with him myself reading the book.
The supporting cast were so real to me as well, which doesn’t always happen in books. Pez with his outlandish style and personality, Nora with her knack for numbers and June’s struggle with being the First Daughter.
In the last chapter reading about when Alex’s mother first became President brought tears to my eyes imagining the scene happening in real life. And the speeches that they gave in the book were so well written and moving. I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in a long time!

The brilliance of a diverse read that doesn't yell gay, straight, queer, lesbian is one that feels real and relatable, right?  This is Casey's first novel that's getting published today for all readers to enjoy and fall in love with.  I am 100% certain that so many people, regardless of what your standing is, will read this book and love every second of it too!

This is a hilariously wonderful take on finding out who you are in a society that might be stuck in traditional beliefs.  Realistically written so that you will root for, yell at and maybe think of throwing the book when things don't go as you planned it in your head.

The portrayal of the characters was spot-on, they felt real, sarcastic, to the point, strong, and flawed.  Told from the point of view of Alex, you will see his struggle with wanting what he wants, learning to accept himself and finding his place in the world.

The romance was not instant, very few romances are, so this was refreshing to read.  I had to know whether Alex gets his prince, and happily ever after.  And, while I really want to spoil things and tell you guys everything I loved, I won't.  I want you to go out, support this insanely talented author and buy this book.  It belongs on your shelf and in your life!  This would also make a seriously fun movie for everyone to enjoy...

Let me know what you guys think when you finish this read.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts...

This book deserves all the stars! Never have I read something that is so timely & purposeful. Never have I read something that literally has my heart aching with pure joy & gratitude. The saying—Books are powerful—has never been more true. This story, this narrative, is exactly what we need. Love is love is love.

I honestly don’t think I can talk about this book with coherent words. I loved it so much. Everything about it was wonderful and beautiful and sweet and heartwarming and fun. I wish I could do back in time and read it for the first time and experience the magic all over again.

Alex is the first son of the first female President on the United States. Henry is the Prince of England and Alex despises everything about Alex. He hates how you never see the person Henry truly is. After an incident at Henry’s brother’s wedding, the two heartthrobs need to pretend to be friends to fix their images. When the two of them are forced spend time together, the connection is obvious and I loved every minute of it!

I loved, loved, loved Alex and Henry together. From their heated words, to the blossoming friendship, to the sexy times, these two boys were everything. They were so sweet and cute together, but also dealing with some real issues, like Alex’s mom reelection and Henry being a Prince! I also have much love for the secondary characters as well. Alex’s family was just amazing and supportive and I wish Henry had more people in his life that he could be real with.

I am writing this review in March, but I already know that Red, White and Royal Blue is one of my favorite books of 2019. I highly recommend it!

I greatly enjoyed this book and below are some of my greatest likes and dislikes.
-Likes-

-I love that in the story the author doesn't gloss over very real emotional issues like anxiety and stress.
-I'm a romance addict so I always love seeing all the Hallmark romantic tropes in LGBTQ romances.

-Dislikes-

-My only major dislike was that some of the time shifts were slightly jarring to me. It didn't detract for the story as a whole, they were more of a minor annoyance.

Alex and Henry’s story was just magnificent. Funny and sweet, with a love story you can’t help rooting for. Enemies to lovers done perfectly right.

This was such a joy! I'd expected the political/royal setup to be more of a backdrop to the love story, but Alex's mother's presidential campaign is actually a major part of the plot and is told with nuance and a clear depth of knowledge. (It was also really nice being in a world with a female democrat president for a while, instead of... *gestures vaguely in direction of White House* that). The chemistry between Alex and Henry is brilliant, and I also loved how it illustrates so well how it's possible for some people - such as Alex - to reach their 20s or later without realising that they're not straight. That was really well done.
Being British, I did wish the UK side of the story had been a little more in-depth. It acknowledges issues with the monarchy and the UK's horrific colonial past, which is so important, but some of the characters veered a wee bit too far into Stereotypical Posh English Villain territory for my liking and there wasn't much sense that Henry felt much care or responsibility towards his country in the way that Alex so deeply does for his. Then again, as Alex is the main character it's understandable that it focuses more on the American aspects. Overall a really great book, and one I'd definitely read again.

This book was a pure joy to read-- after only a few chapters I started texting my friends telling them to pre-order their copy. McQuinston builds an alternate universe where old problems still exist, but people are a just a little bit kinder and more open minded. I basically started re-reading as soon as I finished just so I could experience it all again.

I don't think I could have loved this book more!! I love enemies to lovers stories and this one was just perfection. It was so funny, romantic, sweet, heartwarming, relatable and oh so sexy. You could not help but instantly fall in love with and root for Alex and Henry. I felt every single emotion reading this book and I just could not get enough of it. I can already tell without a doubt that this is going to be one of my favorites of 2019 and a book that I will return to many times. It just made my heart so happy. Thank you so much to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

This was my review on goodreads:
“YAAAAASSSSSS!
This was my #1 most anticipated of the year. So when I got an e-arc via Netgalley I was so excited.
I’ve spoken to the author, Casey, over Twitter a few times and they’re so nice and just a cool person!
With all those things combined, going into this book I was nervous it wouldn’t meet my expectations. Good news, it did! I loved it!
Henry and Alex have such great banter back and forth. They both playfully make fun of each other while also quoting some of the most influential queer writers of the past centuries. I am so happy the story wasn’t just about the love story, though it was the majority of the plot, there were other smaller plots that helped the story move along.
It was a solid 5/5
I will definitely buy a finished copy. Thanks so much again to netgalley for the arc. I really appreciate it :)”

"<I>Do either of y'all know what a viscount is? I've met, like, five of them, and I keep smiling politely as if I know what it means when they say it. Alex, you took comparative international government relational things. Whatever. What are they?</I>"
"<b>I think it's that thing when a vampire creates an army of crazed sex waifs and starts his own ruling body.</b>"

I can't even tell you how happy I am that this book was everything I wanted it to be -- and a million things more.

"<I>Oh my god, this is like all those romantic comedies where the girl hires a male escort to pretend to be her wedding date and then falls in love with him for real.</I>"
"<b>That is <I>not at all</I> what this is like.</b>"

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE is the happiness and sweetness we deserve; not just right now (though maybe especially right now?) but in general. This is one of those rare gems of a story where there isn't a single character to dislike. Where there is representation in so many fabulous forms. Where there is silliness and drama and charm and swoons and just enough angst to make you <b>hurt</b> and the best kind of ending -- the one that makes you cry and cheer and cry some more and hug your kindle to your chest. The kind of ending you'll relive because you know, absolutely, one hundred percent, that you'll be reading this book over and over again.

"<I>I never thought I'd be standing here faced with a choice I can't make, because I never.. I never imagined you would love me back.</I>"

Royals, politics, biracial rep, bisexual rep, grief, addiction, anxiety.. McQuiston somehow spins it all into a delightful tale that will make you laugh and shed tears and wish you could be friends with the characters within the pages.

"<I>Wait, are you watching videos of Justin Trudeau speaking French again?</I>"
"<b>That's not a thing I do!</b>"

This is pure fun and totally heartwarming, with tons of real world tongue-in-cheek dialogue (that, hey, it's nice to laugh about, all things considered), and I'm counting down the days until release when I can shove it in everyone's face.

"<I>I don't think this election is going to hinge on an email server.</I>"
"<b>You sure about that?</b>"
"<I>Listen, maybe if [he] had more time to sow those seeds of doubt, but I don't think we're there. Maybe it it were 2016.</I>" <-- probably too soon but <b>h o n e s t l y</b>.

Highly highly recommend.

DNFing this book about a third of the way through it (it’s 432 pages long so that’s not nothing).

This is nominally a Romance/New Adult debut novel (out in May). It’s been floating around on my radar for months now so I requested an ARC when it came up on NetGalley. It already has a hugely positive group of reviews already, so why did I dislike this so much?

I was trying to figure that out myself as I dragged myself through the first few chapter. Was it confusing or was I just zoning out? Well, both. There’s no sense of time passing so I found the narrative difficult to follow, but also the author seems to be trying to avoid exposition by…leaving important details about the characters out completely until 10, 15, 25% through the book. Not important to the plot just important (or should be important) to the characters – things like Alex’s mom remarried (this is dropped 15% in) and his bff Nora isn’t just hanging around the White House for fun, she’s the VEEP’s granddaughter (25%).

But those were narrative stumbles I would have gotten over if I otherwise was into the characters or (crucially) the romance. Unfortunately, nope. The real reason I hated reading this so much? Alex is a boring dough ball of nothing. He spends all his time protesting too much about Henry, calling Henry boring, but Alex? You have literally nothing going for you either. He has the same sitcom-zinger wit as the other characters, so no interesting narrative voice. He’s in college, I guess, but this is brought up only once or twice*, he does political legwork for his mom, which is mostly off screen. He is supposedly biracial but (and I would welcome pointers to reviews by POC ), that doesn’t seem to actually contribute to his experiences on the page at all (he tells us it made things hard for him but there is no evidence of that – it felt very token diverse to me). None of the factoids that make up his character actually translate to understandable motivations on the page.

And since both characters were about as interesting to me as cardboard cutouts, the “romance”, such as it was, never pulled me in either. The whole thing was like reading a 200k royalty AU fanfiction from 2009, except less fun.

I could go on. I actually started writing up the plot of the book I would rather have read, which if not a better book was at least one I would have enjoyed more (point 1 – Prince Henry should’ve been out) but at that point we’re way past a book review.

Apparently a lot of people like this book. I kind of get it. I think 10 or 15 years ago, I would have liked it too. But sadly time has moved on and so have I, and thanks, I hate it.

*an aside: the “white house trio” characters are all nominally in their 20s but felt VERY teenager to me. Is this because I, an old, can no longer tell the difference between 15 and 25? Perhaps. But also they all seemed to have really juvenile personalities and with June and Alex living at home for handwavey reasons I just couldn’t stop thinking about them as Teens.

This book was perfect. It had romance, self-discovery, family relationships, and even politics! It was a cozy read that I couldn't put down. The enemies to friends to lovers storyline was explored in a way that felt real and helped explore each characters' personality and development. This book is a must read!

4.25 stars.

I've waited ages to get this book in my hands. I'd have begged if I had to. Red, White & Royal Blue has to be one of the cutest books I've read in a very long time.

Casey wrote a book that made my heart very happy. Alex and Henry were the cutest people and of course an even more adorable couple. I loved everything about them and who wouldn't love to see something like this to happen in real life.

I loved the secondary couples too (especially Alex's family). They were the best. My only wish was that we got to read more of Alex & Henry together as a couple. We saw them with their family (which I'm not complaining about) but I'd have to more one on one with them - if that makes sense.

All in all, I'm a huge fan and I can't wait everyone to read this! It'll be worth the wait!

"Red, White & Royal Blue" is not the book you'd expect it to be. Yes, it's a sweet, funny MM romance book with a highly unlikely plot exactly as promised in the blurb, but that is absolutely not all that there is to it. There is also amazing, stellar writing, complex characters (minor ones included) and a gentle yet profound thoughtfulness that tops it all. I expected to laugh and go a little 'aaw' in a couple of cute scenes, and instead I almost cried. And, excuse me if I repeat myself, I think the credit for that goes all to Casey McQuiston's powerful writing. I will definitely check out her next novels.
However, there was one tiny thing which I found absurdly frustrating, namely the inexplicable and honestly weird reluctance to mention genitals. I would not shelve this book as a Young Adult proper, because the narrator is not even that subtle about sex, and this is the reason why it does sound weird that the narrator is too shy to mention genitals, even with a clinical term, while verbs such as "go down" and "fuck" appear normally (i.e. not ostentatiously, just when the context or the description requires them). Since it makes to sense to use euphemisms about one thing and being instead relaxedly explicit with the other, this somewhat felt like a lack of coherence in the writing.
For this reason and also because, as I mentioned, the premise is still almost too over-the-top, this read is not a full five stars for me, but nevertheless, if there is one book that can pull off a First Son-Prince of England romance, then it's this one. Four stars.

Ok, so clearly I'm in the minority when it comes to my opinion.

I feel like this book was trying way too hard to be a lot of things. It's going to be 432 pages and that's just necessary. It focused way too much on the politics, and not just that, it made a complete farce of the way the politics work.

If this book were PG, and slightly less openly gay, it would undoubtedly be turned into a Disney Channel movie, down to the unrealistically happy ending where we all pretend the world is made of rainbows and unicorn farts. And, honestly, I wouldn't mind that. I love happy endings. If the book had been only about romance, it would have been fine. But, the book insisted on shoving politics down my throat and the overidealized ending just seemed forced and so utterly predictable.

The world the book shows is what ours would look like through rose-colored glasses. It's a world where the female president of the United States is a white, Texan democrat. Where leaked personal emails have no impact on presidential elections. Where a royal prince believes empires are the literal devil, despite benefiting from the monarchy is every single way possible. Where First Son of the U.S. and the British Prince would go everywhere without anyone taking a picture. Also, that their affair wouldn't have any global consequences. Because honestly, in the end, it didn't. It made all the obstacles between the romance seem weak. The author put so much focus on the laughable politics that I couldn't help but roll my eyes. She tried to tackle racism, international relationships, homophobia, complicated family drama, equality, and just about every other social issue, while also trying to deliver a good romance.

People are gonna say, 'the book doesn't have to be realistic!' and I agree. It's just so insanely unbelievable that I was honestly annoyed by it. This was supposed to be a cute, romance, not a book about idealized political views. If it had been a romance novel, I would have liked it more, and honestly, not by much.

I liked some of the dialogue. I laughed sometimes. It was cute. But sometimes the characters felt off to me. Like they were trying so hard to be relatable and likable that they broke their established characteristics. Also, the very premise of the book is enemies to lovers. Slight Spoiler Alert: Alex and Henry are enemies for like the first two chapters, at most. Then they're friends.

In the end, this book just wasn't for me. there were too many subplots, too many social issues trying to become part of the main story. I went into this book expecting one thing. I got something else instead, and in the end, I think that's the real problem. If I'm honest, all the issue I mentioned are things that in a book I enjoyed, I might have overlooked. Sadly, this wasn't that book. Hopefully, you all have better luck with it and please be respectful of my opinion. My issue with the book has nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ aspect, it has to do with the overall execution.

**Links to the review will be posted closer to the date when the review is released on Goodreads, my blog, and online stores**

I absolutely adored this; a fantastic example of the New Adult genre we need to see more of! I gobbled it down in one day. It’s a super swoony trope-filled debut, absolute perfection!

I will be including this in illumicrate’s monthly newsletter for May