Melodious Books

Jade Melody
- Jul 11, 2019
- 4 min read

Red, White & Royal Blue ~ Casey McQuiston

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hype does scare me when it comes to reading a book or a series. That is why I treaded hesitantly when it came to this book, I wasn't sure if the hype was going to consume me and leave me with nothing to enjoy in this book. Well, I can happily tell you that didn't happen and that I love this book with my whole entire heart.

Synopsis

A big-hearted romantic comedy in which First Son Alex falls in love with Prince Henry of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends...

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.

The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

This book was actually so amazing. The first half of the book when I thought of what I would rate it once I finished (bc obviously I was going to finish it) I kind of believed it would be a 4, maybe 4.5, star read. At that point, it was a book I was enjoying but not enough for it to be phenomenal or to be considered one of my new favorites. The second half of the book made me want to slap my prior self for not considering the background that went into the first half of the book and how that made everything in the rest of the book enjoyable. Like, it wouldn't have meant as much to me if there wasn't all that build up of Alex looking at Henry in a teeny bop magazine of June's like oh my god that was so perfect.

I still feel like my brain is very flustered because I finished reading the book like five minutes ago but I thought I would let my fresh thoughts just flow for this review.

Something I wasn't too sure about going in was the hate to love trope thats included in this book. It's not something I've dealt with since I got back into reading again and from what I remembered from my sad prior reading, it was also super cringey. This was far far from that. It was so enjoyable, like I said before, the magazine that Alex looked at Henry in way before they ever met like sealed it for me. It was the underlying spark of something that he didn't recognize as feelings for him. What made this hate to love even better was the LGBTQ+ rep, like oh my god, the fact that they were two boys made my heart grow ten sizes. Maybe it was just the characters of Alex and Henry, together, that was enjoyable for me because I LOVE them so much, but I just really enjoyed their overall dynamic and attitude. Plus their romance blooming throughout the book was absolutely precious. Them sending emails and quoting historic letters was so incredible. I love history, so that was like an added bonus on top of all the romantic gush I was loving about this book. But the scandal and the royal part of the scandal had me shook! Actually, a lot of this book had me shook. Sometimes good and sometimes like WTF??!! The good ways always had me laughing at loud or being like oh oh OH MY GOD! (it was a build up). The, not really, bad times were more me just being like "no please don't let that happen" or (again) "WHAT THE..." and sometimes it was just screaming like actual screaming and gushing as well in the better moments.

Something I wasn't expecting to be something as involved in the story and for me to actually like was the politics. Since I took government my senior year of high school, I've been more interested in American politics and all that goes on behind the scenes and voting and all that jazz. So it was interested to see the insight on what the author believes that first family would be like. I also enjoyed the many roles that were included that were very real to the roles the first family probably has like security agents and other people that just manage the every day lives of the first family. It was something that I expected going in would be overshadowed by the romance but it very much wasn't. And if politics isn't your thing or you are currently anti politics for reasons I won't go into... don't be hesitant of this book, it's not overwhelming but (in my opinion) there is an enjoyable amount that makes the book seem more realistic.

Seriously, please read this book. I'm not going to say anything like "I recommend this blah blah blah.." I'm saying go pick this up from your bookstore or library or thrift store. Wherever you get books. Go get it. Read it. Or listen to it. The audiobook is out to have a bad rep but I listened to the audiobook while reading this physical copy and it made my experience even more enjoyable that I think it would have been just reading the physical book.

Jade Melody
- Jul 5, 2019
- 4 min read

The Unhoneymooners ~ Christina Lauren

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½

To be completely honest I'm still not the biggest fan of purely romantic books, yet. However, the synopsis and what I heard from certain BookTubers made me interested in what this book had to offer. It also made me interested in the two co-authors.

Synopsis

Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.

Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.

Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.

This book ending up being a lot better than I thought it would be at the very beginning. I remember specifically updating Goodreads and saying something along the lines of I'm not really that into this. Well, I ended up getting into it. Because as soon as Ethan & Olive got to the airport and the whole airplane fiasco began, it got interesting. From there I just kept wanting to see their relationship blossom. For them to discover the details about each other that they don't know, and that definitely did end up happening and I very much enjoyed it. Also throughout the book, before and during the romance, the banter between them was so enjoyable. One of the "catchphrases" as I would call it that I specially liked is that they kept saying that they liked to annoy each other and that is what makes them spending time together enjoyable, obviously this changes as the romance comes but they still continue to say that.

Another thing I liked was at the very very end. I wouldn't necessarily call it a spoiler because I'm not revealing anything about the plot of the book just more what I liked about the structure of the book, so if you think that's spoilerish, just skip this part. I liked the change in the point of view. I liked getting to see the thoughts of the other main character during all of the events that went down during that whole last portion of the book. It made it enjoyable especially to see what he thought of her (like I said) and how her perceived her, it was just so cute and that is not something my newly black heart likes to admit, but it was.

This book genuinely was mostly good and there really wasn't anything that made me not like it except for one thing. The whole part where nobody chose to believe Olive. Which fine, makes sense because Ethan is Dane's brother and Ami wants to believe her new husband and significant other of a long time, of course nobody wants to think that they have been consistently cheated on since almost the beginning of the relationship, but still PLEASE consider that Olive could have a point. I understand Ami because there could be some initial shock but to really blow up at her sister like that seemed so unnecessary and it just made me mad. Instead of letting her sister explain a little more or even comfort her or anything, she just blew up at her calling out Olive's flaws and why she could in no way be right. Then goes to say that Olive isn't worth it essentially, leaves and then chooses to ignore her for who knows how long. Ethan on the other hand decides that communication isn't key and that was the one moment where I was just like... COME ON, BE A MAN AND TALK TO HER. One of my pet peeves is when people don't listen and he just didn't even take into consideration anything she was saying and immediately assumed it was false. Then went on the break up with her. Like oh my god that is so much overkill. I understand that all of this is to add interesting aspects to the plot, which it did in a sense, but in my opinion what bothered me about all of this is that Ami and Ethan during this part of the book didn't fit into how their characters acted for the whole other part of the book. It's like they became completely different people and that just didn't sit well with me. It's not like I didn't enjoy the plot going that direction but I think it could've been done in a different and better way that kept the characters more of themselves. Dane on the other hand, I expected him to be a heada*s from the beginning so I wasn't exactly surprised.

So pretty much my one issue with this book is just a personal preference and not a significant flaw in the book, that is why my rating is only down by half a star because I really did enjoy like 90% of this book. It's just that one part that irked me. But after it essentially ended, the book was better for me again. I would recommend it.