I absolutely loved this novel. It was one of my favorite books of 2019. The story, the characters, the pacing, all combined to make this a quick, easy read, with just enough angst and depth.

What an adorable, romantic book. You meet Alex, son of the president of the United States. You also meet Henry, the grandson of the Queen of England. The first half of the book is Alex and Henry’s love story. The second half gets into how they handle a major scandal leak.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Absolutely loved this one. Adorable and fun, yet honest and eye opening. Would read anything else by this author.

Unfortunately this book did not live up to the hype for me. While I appreciated the LGBTQ love story and liked the characters, I found them to be immature and it felt like YA rather than adult fiction with all the communication issues. Although I love the premise of this book, the execution fell flat for me. I thought that perhaps if it were 100 pages shorter it would have moved at a better pace.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this novel!

Rating: 4 stars
Rep: bisexual, half-Mexican MC, gay love interest. LGBTQ+ and POC side characters.
Trigger warnings: homophobia, anxiety attacks, cancer, grief, drug abuse, forced outing.

Have you ever put off reading a book because you think you're going to love it so much and then the pressure gets too much and you end up not reading it until months later? That's me with this book. This was 100% my most anticipated read of 2019, I was ecstatic when I received an eARC, but then proceeded to put it off until months later.

After reading, I definitely see why this has been such a massive hit with people, the writing style was gorgeous and the plot completely gripped me (I stayed up until 3AM to finish this!).

Things I loved:
-The bisexual rep was so well done (in my personal opinion). Discovering your sexuality later on in life is not a bad thing at all, the author handled everything so well and I really connected to Alex a lot.
-The chemistry, back and forth between Henry & Alex was brilliant! I really loved them as individual characters and as a couple.
-This book was incredibly funny. I couldn't stop laughing at some of the scenes!
-Very casual queer rep, which I loved to see.

Some cons:
- As the book is around 450 pages, I felt like it did drag a little and I was bored in places.
-For me personally, there was too much political talk at times.
-I'm not a fan of outings in books (I know they are a fact of life, unfortunately, but I hate reading about it) and Alex & Henry were outed in the most horrid way.
-My biggest issue was the clearly lack of research done for the British side of things. The probability of a Prince running his own personal Instagram account is very slim to none. And no, you wouldn't catch a royal doing ITV This Morning...little things like that really grated on my nerves throughout the book.


Overall, a fantastic debut that deserves all the hype it gets. I can't wait to read more by this author in the future!

I absolutely adored Red, White & Royal Blue! This book was super fun, fast-paced, and full of heart. I really enjoyed the American Royalty/British Royal dynamic, as well as both Alex and Henry's journey to self acceptance. Perfection!

A very fun and sexy romp - I read this more or less in a single sitting and enjoyed it way, way more than I thought I would.

This book is a masterpiece bursting with passion and wit! It will make you feel all the emotions. It's so entertaining, smart and hilarious. Such an endearing debut. I cannot sing high enough praises.

I wanted to read this book and really enjoyed the romance between the american son and the english boy. I enjoyed the family. Overall this book lived up to the hype. Loved it.

Far too long, this story would have been so much better if it had been edited properly and cut in half. Far too long for what it was. Having said that the overall story was interesting and the main characters sweet.

Just not one for me.

The publisher, St. Martin's Press, kindly offered me a reader copy (RC) of Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston via NetGalley. Yet, this is an honest review of the book expressing my humble opinion.

After recently receiving 2 Goodreads Awards and enormous praise from the community, I had high expectations from this book, and I am deliriously happy that the book surpassed those.

The main character is a biracial Mexican-American, and we have a diverse, inclusive cast ensemble with great representation of queer people and people of color. The main romance couldn't possibly be more adorable and sexy than it was.

I have no more words except to say that I'm going to re-read this gem a million times and then some. Amazing novel and a great example of inclusive and excellent representation. We desperately need more of these books.

5 stars – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Author: Casey McQuiston
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

This took me such a long time to finish, and I didn't think I'd have that problem when I started it.

I wish I loved this more than just 3 stars. I am sad that my feelings didn't meet the hype of others when reading this.

There were parts I loved and parts I didn't.

1. I absolutely loved the friendship and characters. All the characters were enjoyable and I loved them all with flaws and all. At first, I didn't like Henry and then he grew on me. I will definielty think of these characters days, weeks, and months from now.

2. I didn't like how heavy the politics talk was. Going into it I thought it was going to be a cute adult romance with politics surrounding the plot, not it being the heavy focus on the book. I guess that's my fault for assuming. That's one thing that affected my rating. I got so bored of the politics and history talk I just skipped right over it or put the book down and didn't wanna pick it back up.

3. I didn't like the pacing and pov. I felt like the book really lagged and randomly jumped to a fast pace at times. The POV threw me off a lot because I couldn't tell who we were talking about and would get confused and have to continuously re-read. Again, just my opinions and how I like my reading style to be. I also believed the story couldve really been cut down by a lot. By the end I was relieved I was able to even finish it without DNFING.

4. Lastly, I wrote in my notes my favorite part in the book: One being when the gang went out to the karaoke bar and all got drunk and just had the times of their lives. My heart swelled with happiness because i've never felt so contected with characters like these before. They felt so real and I'm sad they aren't. Second favorite was when Alex flew all the way to London when he and Henry had their first really big fight/fall out and he called him an asshole and they had the whole hate aspect and then aggressively made up. Ah, love that shit.

Overall, I enjoyed my time at certain parts in the book. I really wish I loved this as much as everyone else. Although, now I want to purchase myself "History, huh?" shirt just because I loved the romance and friendship this story gave.

⭐️ 3/5 ⭐️

This book definitely lived up to the hype!

I loved this parallel universe with a queer romance between a prince and a first son. They were such a cute couple! It really didn’t feel that far off from the future. Things are changing everyday, and I can imagine these kinds of changes in these historical institutions. However, it was heartbreaking that these two boys, who were perfect for each other, could have been kept apart because of some people’s prejudice.

Some of the parts were predictable, but that’s what I loved about the story. I could tell that Alex and Henry would get together, because of the tension between them. I also predicted that they would be caught in some way because that was the danger of their relationship becoming public.

I’m so glad I read this story! I loved it!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*sigh* I devoured this book. I like to think of this as the LGBT "The Royal We" with a heavy-handed sprinkling of American politics thrown in for fun.

One of my favorite books I've read this year!

Not my sort of book, this ended up being way too cringe worthy for me, the British stereotypes put me WAY off this book. i'm really disappointed since I was looking forward to it so much!

This is a great romance! I love royal romances and this book is a refreshing twist on royal romances. I love the main characters. I love the setting. I love the dialogue. This was a fun romance and I will be recommending it to everyone!

Eugh, this is so cuuuttttte. Like, can we please get a beautifully done Netflix movie of this? Or maybe not, because they might butcher it. But I want a good one, it's that's cute.

This is not the kind of book I normally read but the hype really is real and I actually enjoyed it a lot. It was a mix of cute, sad & just downright funny. I'd definitely pick up a sequel if ever there were one!

Red, White & Royal Blue was an absolute DELIGHT! One of the most buzzed about books of the summer was totally deserving of every bit of hype it received. While I wish it was just a smidge shorter, I ultimately found myself beginning - and ending - this 420+ page novel in a single sitting.

Red, White & Royal Blue was different from any other book I've read. I liked the premise of the story. The son of the first woman, Hispanic president of the US and a royal from England. I thought it was a cute story. I will say that even though I think of myself as open to all lifestyles, it was uncomfortable to read about the detailed sexual experiences between the two men. Overall, a fun story that I would recommend to others.