Short Review: Red, White and Royal Blue

[jennaria]

I have the book out of the library, so I will revisit this with a comparison post, but in the meantime!

Aside from a bit in the beginning (I am not a fan of second-hand embarrassment), this is the frothiest, fluffiest rom-com ever. Our two leads are very pretty, it hits all the expected beats, and the only part where I really blinked and shook my head was where a major Democratic party strategy was enrolling significant new voters in Texas and somehow this did not get featured in attack ads and challenged to hell and gone by the Republicans. Is the author from Texas? Because I feel like there was some significant wish fulfillment going on there.

(Also, if y'all expect me to believe that the King of England is a homophobic old bastard, nothing more, maybe cast someone other than Stephen Fry? Because I instantly came up with theories about how he's being a bastard because of his own Lost Love back in the day.)

I did see some reactions on Tumblr that wanted it angstier. Eh, de gustibus. Let me have my silly rom-com! Sometimes you just want a Hallmark movie but gay!

Comments

[stranger]

I've been a fan of the book since it was published, haven't accessed the movie as yet, but trailer publicity etc. suggest it follows the book with some detail changes. Yeah, even in the book, Texas flipping in that election sequence was plain fantasy. Although the story is also clearly, more or less explicitly, informed by The West Wing, which *also* flipped Texas as the climax of their big election finale arc. Even without that, the First Family being from Texas and especially Alex's strong sense of heritage there, made it inevitable that Texas would come through for him when it mattered, in rom-com reality.

Sigh. It's a dream, but it's a *good* dream. Also, I quite like your take on Stephen Fry, whose Sekrit Past is even more plausible given the messy history of royal Jameses. Did they give him a number? Jacobean historians would like to know just what kind of AU this is...

[jennaria]

I mean, the rules of rom-coms absolutely meant that as soon as Alex put effort in there, it would pay off. That's how rom-coms work. It's mostly that I just moved to Texas, so there's extra smoke in that pipe dream, so to speak.

(Wikipedia says King James III. I do not know my Jacobean history well enough to say what this implies.)

[stranger]

James I was the first Stuart king of England, with the shift in dynasty after the Tudors looking a bit dodgy from the perspective of Scotland having been the traditional enemy-to-the-north for a couple of centuries. He was also possibly the gayest king ever, showering his male favorite(s) with titles and riches.

James II, one of his grandsons, was deemed unsuitable by parliament over religious conflicts and was kicked out (he wanted to remain a Catholic, and hoo-boy that did *not* fly after Charles I and Oliver Cromwell). He was replaced by his sister Mary and her husband William of Orange.

The former James II lived in France for the rest of his life, and later one of his sons was recognized James III (and later a son of his was the storied Bonnie Prince Charlie) by some European powers, inciting the Jacobite followers in England to support them against the new new dynasty, the Hanoverian Georges. From whence descended Queen Victoria, and the family now called House of Windsor.

Making the AU King of England in 2020 be a James III means it's a straightforward substitution for fictional purposes. There haven't been any notable Hanover descendants named James, I would guess exactly to avoid bringing up the troubled history of the 17th century, which a fictional James IV would have done. The copious romantic literature about Jacobean expats, spies, breathless escapes, civil unrest, lovers parted and reunited across political divides, etc., etc., (Walter Scott was one of the early writers on this theme), was not always very comedic but definitely played into the romance genre as it is today.