Back of the book
What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales.
Alex Claremont-Diaz is handsome, charismatic, a genius – pure millennial-marketing gold for the White Hold ever since his mother first became President of the United States. There's only one problem. When the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an altercation between Alex and Prince Henry, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family and state devise a plan for damage control: stage a truce. But what begins as a fake, Instagrammable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon they are hurtling into a secret romance that could derail the presidential campaign and upend two nations.
My thoughts.
I wanted to like this book.
I found out about it from ads for the movie, which I watched before reading. Pure rom-com trash, I felt a silly type of joy watching it. I couldn't wait for the book to reveal its secrets.
This book was not written well. McQuiston was trying too hard to be witty, coming off as overwritten, or people saying unnecessarily crass things to pass as wit. An example: "With a resounding smack, Zahra slaps a stack of magazines down." P20. Smacks and slaps is an unnecessary double. Occasionally her efforts to write engagingly worked, but more often I noticed writing that did not flow and was uncomfortable. A second example: "You act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing." P25. In the movie, this was edited to, "You act like the sun shines out of his ass and you have a vitamin D deficiency." This feels more witty with the same amount of crass, achieving what it intended. Last movie comparison, the movie edited the book down to the bare themes which made it bearable, because the details this book tries to involve are a hot mess.
I know the barest basics of American politics and this book went into too much detail yet not enough because I couldn't grasp what was going on. I loved the idea that Alex is chasing a political career because he cares about people, doing the right thing, patriotism at its best. I love this idealism, but it feels far-fetched. As detailed as the American politics were, the English monarchy and government system lacked all depth. Upon reflection it feels like a lack of research by McQuiston, who as an American, went into this novel with only her American idea of England and built the story on only that information.
The text felt very judgemental of England, like we were always looking down our nose at them. I understand the effort to construct an "enemies" vibe, but it felt like we were bashing England, the monarchy and the role of a Prince, without attacking Henry himself. This book was written third person, however a lot of the tonal elements would have made more sense if we were first person with Alex. It makes more sense for a particular character to have a biased world-view than to write a novel from a biased tone. I got the message "monarchy is bad, American politics is better" which is small minded, uneducated and personally I think both have major faults.
I like the idea of including raw emails, text messages and magazine articles in a novel, but actually reading them in this book was annoying. It breaks the flow, often looks terrible because to accurately portray how people textually communicate it involves horrific spelling, grammar, everything. I feel the texts and emails didn't add enough to the narrative to warrant the jarring effect it had on reading. No-one's group chat messages are worth reading as fodder in a novel. Texting is for communication, not a pleasant reading experience.
Overall, this was a book about politics, America vs England, is the monarchy still relevant, living life as a public figure, family relations behind closed doors, privacy of public figures, growing up a minority, idealism of how politics could work. But it wasn't really about all that, it was about romance, and all those themes were background noise. A background cacophony of an orchestra falling down stairs as it was done poorly. Each of the 'background' themes could have whole books written about them. Red, White and Royal Blue introduced them without engaging in meaningful portrayal or commentary which was disappointing and messy. Despite how this review sounds, I didn't hate this book. It had fun moments and silly moments (and not-quite erotica moments), I love a gay romance and fighting the powers that be to live an honest life. My recommendation though, is to watch the movie, and you won't miss anything worthwhile.
TL:DR
I wanted this book to be better. When I read fanfiction I expect it to be bad; I expect more from a published book. Will not make reading her other titles a priority.