Red White & Royal Blue
Nov. 11th, 2025 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearRed White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston was a reread for me - and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would (and more than I thought I had the first time around, but what do I know?).
The premised is extremely ridiculous - the first female US president's son in a romance with one of the grandsons of the British monarch - but once you go with it, it's generally very well executed.
It certainly shows a 2020 I really wish we'd had, rather than the one we actually lived through...
The romance builds very credibly and is very cute and heartwarming, even if the seriousness of the relationship seems a bit OTT and a bit fast - but hey, it's a romance book, so what did I expect?
And I also enjoyed the politics - both small 'p' and big 'P' - of which there was more than I'd remembered.
It's all a complete fantasy but overall a very enjoyable one.
I also watched the 2023 film version and really enjoyed that too - though the pacing made the whole thing even more ridiculously fast, and some of the compression of characters and plot points was a bit disappointing, even though I could see why it was done. Awesome casting all round - especially Sarah Shahi - apart from Stephen Fry, who was a very odd choice for the hidebound and homophobic king...
The premised is extremely ridiculous - the first female US president's son in a romance with one of the grandsons of the British monarch - but once you go with it, it's generally very well executed.
It certainly shows a 2020 I really wish we'd had, rather than the one we actually lived through...
The romance builds very credibly and is very cute and heartwarming, even if the seriousness of the relationship seems a bit OTT and a bit fast - but hey, it's a romance book, so what did I expect?
And I also enjoyed the politics - both small 'p' and big 'P' - of which there was more than I'd remembered.
It's all a complete fantasy but overall a very enjoyable one.
I also watched the 2023 film version and really enjoyed that too - though the pacing made the whole thing even more ridiculously fast, and some of the compression of characters and plot points was a bit disappointing, even though I could see why it was done. Awesome casting all round - especially Sarah Shahi - apart from Stephen Fry, who was a very odd choice for the hidebound and homophobic king...
