From the Bookshelf of The Rebellious Readers …

Red, White & Royal Blue

Casey McQuiston

Start date: February 1, 2021

Finish date: February 28, 2021

Discussion: BOTM Discussions

Discussion leader: Lucy Tonks (the invisible life of a reader)

Why we're reading this: It won the February BOTM
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February BOTM 2021 - The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune)
By Lucy Tonks , Shadowhunter - Head of BOTM · 5 posts · 23 views

last updated Feb 09, 2021 09:14AM

February BOTM 2021 - Red, White and Royal Blue
By Lucy Tonks , Shadowhunter - Head of BOTM · 2 posts · 14 views

last updated Feb 01, 2021 09:24AM

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What Members Thought

Nov 29, 2019 Arunimaa rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance, queer, lost-interest, kindle, 2019-reads

I just feel extremely sad writing this review. The first reason being that I DNFed the book at 44 %. I hate doing that. And secondly, because I really, really wanted to love this book.

It was not a bad book. It probably could have reached three star rating if I maybe had given the book some more time, but that's the thing, it was just so hard for me to give it any more time at all.

Like, I was fairly enjoying the book but then there are parts that are just so hard to concentrate on. And then som I just feel extremely sad writing this review. The first reason being that I DNFed the book at 44 %. I hate doing that. And secondly, because I really, really wanted to love this book.

It was not a bad book. It probably could have reached three star rating if I maybe had given the book some more time, but that's the thing, it was just so hard for me to give it any more time at all.

Like, I was fairly enjoying the book but then there are parts that are just so hard to concentrate on. And then some parts were just painful.
I kept shifting between 3 and 2 stars until at one point I just couldn't read any more of it and I had to put the book aside. I liked the idea of the plotline that the author came up with, the whole idea of this romance between the First Son of The States and The Prince of Wales. Quite Wattpaddish but also you know, makes you interested. It sounded fun. It had 5 star reviews practically overflowing on its page. So obviously I had high expectations out of this one. As I mentioned before, it wasn't a bad book. It had nice characters, I really liked Alex and Henry as individual characters. But their stories were very ordinary. Ordinary in the sense very cliche. Some of their exchange just made me cringe because like I know it is supposed to be one of those soft, fluffy scenes that give you the feels but it was all very like, I am not even sure how to explain it, typical ?

So basically Alex hates Henry, but then there is this one scene where he sees Henry being nice to a kid with cancer from behind a curtain ( of course ) and he is just so amazed and thinks Wait, Henry has this side as well? Maybe he is not so bad after all. And that's when he sees him in a new light.

You see, there is a reason I haven't been to Wattpad in years. The writing reminded me so much of my seventh grade Wattpad phase, a phase I am not too proud of. Every time I would read some stupid scene like that, it would just make me cringe super bad.

Coming onto the better parts of the book now. As I said before also, RWARB wasn't a completely shit novel. There were some really hilarious parts as well that I really enjoyed. And although I wasn't a huge fan of the exchange of dialogue between Henry and Alex, I definitely enjoyed their more intimate scenes. I had sort of expected them to either not be there at all, you know vaguely hinted maybe. Or just be super cringy. I'd rather have the former than a badly written sex scene. That's just one thing that I can't bear. Again, gives me those awful Wattpad memories. But, thankfully that wasn't the case here. We do get a lot of steamy scenes in the book, and I wouldn't really call it very explicit but it was fairly hot. I really liked them. It wasn't heavily described, some parts were definitely hinted rather than described in detail but then again, it is a New Adult novel and from that standards, I found it overall pretty hot. In fact, the one star is for the steam alone. It was the only thing that helped me go on for so long until of course that also stopped helping and I had to sadly DNF the book. ...more

19 likes · Like · see review

Oct 31, 2020 Joyce rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, contemporary, books-read, new-adult, buddy-read, lgbtq

I will not lie and say I didn’t buy this book because of the hype. I saw this book all over Instagram and I just had to get a copy for myself!

I had VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS for this. I didn’t give this one a 5 stars, but I did really enjoy it :’) It did not let me down!

It was a really cute read. The main plot of this was really the romance between Alex and Henry but don’t think that’s all to it. This book dealt and raised awareness to important topics such as sexual identity which I thought was v ...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Jul 20, 2025 Shawna Finnigan rated it liked it

The hype surrounding this book is so extreme that it definitely made my expectations for it way too high. Red, White & Royal Blue is a decent book, but it really didn’t live up to the hype for me.

A little disclaimer: I read this book as an audiobook and that most likely hindered from my enjoyment of the book. The audiobook narrator didn’t do a good job of capturing the personality of young twenty year olds, so it was painful to listen to at times because the narration sounded very much like a mi The hype surrounding this book is so extreme that it definitely made my expectations for it way too high. Red, White & Royal Blue is a decent book, but it really didn’t live up to the hype for me.

A little disclaimer: I read this book as an audiobook and that most likely hindered from my enjoyment of the book. The audiobook narrator didn’t do a good job of capturing the personality of young twenty year olds, so it was painful to listen to at times because the narration sounded very much like a middle aged man failing to be a young person. Also, the moments when the narrator read out “lmao” as “lmaoooooooooooo” while sounding like he was coughing out all the o’s will forever haunt me in my dreams.

Red, White & Royal Blue started off really rough for me because all the characters are extremely flawed at the start of the book. Even Alex and Henry, who I grew to care for by the end, were extremely unbearable. By the end of the book, a lot of the side characters still annoyed me to no end, especially June and Nora.

The forbidden romance was what carried the story. It had high stakes and a decent level of steam that was really fun to read about. I enjoy reading romances with royalty involved and it was a unique take to read one that involved not only the British royals but also the first family.

The inside look into U.S. politics and how messy they can get was really interesting to read about. I’m very politically active and use my voice to advocate for what I believe is right, so the inclusion of politics in this book was something that meant a lot to me. McQuinston did a really good job of presenting not only the complexity of the U.S. political system is but also the difficulties that marginalized voices face when trying to change this country for the better.

It was so hard to get my thoughts together for this review because there was so much good to this book but I couldn’t fully enjoy it because it didn't live up to its massive hype. I’m going to watch the movie to see if maybe I should give the written book (not the audiobook) a second chance because it could be that this would be closer to a 4 or 5 star read for me if I had read the written text without listening to it. ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2021 akacya ❦ rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-romance, audience-adult, format-ebook, popsugar-2021

i honestly don’t know why i read this…i don’t like history or politics. i guess because it was so hyped up? (also—if you’ve gotten about 30% into the book and still don’t like it, that’s around when things start heating up, so maybe try sticking around for a bit longer to see if you really want to DNF it. i was super close to not finishing it at that point, but it got better right after.)

overall, this was a good book, just really overrated in my opinion.

completed for 2021 popsugar reading challe ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Oct 08, 2020 gaby rated it really liked it

3.5 maybe?

did a quick reread in preparation for the movie and i think the commentary on the glorification of these political parties, as well as the sweeping under of the rug of any conflict as a minor inconvenience, a pop culture reference and a laugh in terms of anti-colonialistic and anti-traditional commentary in the context of the MONARCHY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM was a little much.

i can appreciate romance but when there is something about viewing the people who represent you (government) and ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Sep 05, 2019 Erika O’Neill rated it it was amazing

Ughhh I loved it so much. From the realism, to the cuteness, to the angst, and to the political side of things - this book was perfect. I would love if this was a real thing 😍

4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 12, 2019 maria basilio rated it it was amazing

There aren't enough stars to give this book the rating it truly deserves but this is it this is hands down my favorite book in the whole wide world. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 28, 2020 Danna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020

El término de una buena lectura me parece algo extremadamente subjetivo, pues existen un sinfín de características o aspectos que cada quien busca para disfrutar de un libro. En mi caso, prefiero sumergirme en la inmensidad de una nueva realidad como la que solo me puede ofrecer un libro sin saber nada de este mismo a excepción de detalles que resultan inevitables de tener en conocimiento. Esto con el fin de no fijar expectativas de un libro en especifico, y ser capaz de disfrutarlo sin esperar ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 29, 2019 Samantha Geissler rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-favorites

This book made my heart smile! I am so glad I finally picked this up, and am also silently cursing myself for not reading this adorable story earlier.

Alex, he is very outgoing and passionate and sometimes sassy. Henry, is quiet and romantic, bringing Alex back to earth. The banter between them? Incredible and hilarious. Their love story? Slightly, no incredibly, epic.

The rest of the characters in this novel? Badass. There wasn’t a single character I didn’t like in this book (except maybe Richa ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 12, 2020 christina :) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite

4.5/5
This book was truly amazing. This was my first lgbtq books and im so happy I chose this book.As a bisexual myself I loved how the author represented Alex as a bisexual character.

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2021 lily rated it liked it

Ok... I got very bored reading this book. Don’t get me wrong Alex and Henry’s relationship is the cutest thing ever it’s just that it was written poorly and it lost my interest.

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 24, 2021 Em rated it it was amazing

Shelves: galway-girls-bookclub

This was a complete taste change from what I normally read but I am so happy I did. It was a fun and witty change of pace, the author is hilarious. My best friend recommended this to me years ago and in her words “read the gay smut and like it!” Don’t worry, I very much liked it.

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