Saturday, May 25, 2019

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - Book Review

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Publication date: May 14, 2019
My rating: 3 stars

“Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some.” 

 I wanted to like it more than I had.

Reading all the gushing reviews and seeing it mentioned multiple times on Twitter, I really wanted to fall in love with it. And while I did enjoy it quite a bit… I didn’t fall in love, and it didn’t… well, wow me.

Why?

For once, it took me about 20-30% of the book to actually start caring about the story. Up until then, it was a bit “hmm” for me.

Once I did though, I quite enjoyed myself.
I liked our two protagonists – Henry and Alex, their interactions, their lives. 

“That's the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.” 

The rest of the characters – June, Nora, etc – fell kind of flat for me though. A lot of the time they even all got confused in my head, not really distinguishing themselves from one another. They were just sort of... there.

The writing style is easy to read and the story itself is quite fun - and funny (I did laugh a number of times, which made me feel great).

But I guess it just didn’t manage to excite me, didn't get more emotions than a general interest out of me.
Which was actually the same trouble I had with Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Even though I would say I certainly liked Red, White & Royal Blue much better.

If you enjoyed Simon or are just looking for a sweet, easy to read, funny romance story about a prince of England and the son of the president of the united states… well, give this one a try :) 

“Sometimes you just jump and hope it's not a cliff.” 

Do I recommend it? Yes, if you're looking for a breath of fresh air after reading/watching way too many fantasy/drama. Trust me, this book won't make you want to pull your hair out, as it very much has "feel good" vibes throughout it all. 

Will I read the author's future books? While I won't be waiting for them with bated breath, I will check them out.
 




“Take anything you want and know you deserve to have it.”

1 comment:

  1. I really want to read this, but I'm also super nervous because of how everybody has been ranting and raving about it.

    ReplyDelete