Man, this book should be exactly my thing: a romance novel about Alex, the American First Son, falling in love with Henry, the youngest Prince of England, and navigating a new relationship while also trying to make sure his mother wins re-election. It should be a beautiful alternate universe version of current times that makes me wish we lived in that world. And instead, I spent the entire book simultaneously grumpy at how naive and dumb everyone in this version of Washington D.C. is and also outraged on Henry's behalf, since everyone in his life is monstrous and also he seems to have literally no agency whatsoever.
Obviously I am in the minority on all of this! It is extremely popular, and so clearly lots of people got something from this story that didn't work for me. But the whole book feels like it exists in too many alternate universes for it to really land anywhere for me at all. The England felt so completely fake to me, and I couldn't understand what this America even is: one where a divorced white woman whose children are half-Mexican American could be the President, and yet her son experiences his personal revelation about his sexuality in a way that felt much closer to 2008 than 2020. Obviously not everyone knows their sexual identity by the time they're 22, no matter how liberal their family or community is. But I didn't believe in the character of Alex at all. He's smart and charismatic and wants to change the world, but he also seems to have exactly one friend in his life and thinks of a guy from Harvard as being hopelessly privileged while attending Georgetown and being the son of a Senator and the fucking President. He's a classic romance novel character, but he's not grounded for me at all. I fundamentally did not believe his isolation or how little he considered how his behavior would impact his mother and himself. I ALSO didn't believe the specific kind of meltdown people had about the relationship once it was revealed. I am fine with secret romance, and obviously the relationship being gay would be more complicated and all that, but everyone treated it as being both far more serious and far less serious than a relationship between two non-elected officials would necessarily be.
(Also, the political machinations going on in the background were fucking nonsense and the sort of pretend version of politics that I might have had more time for four years ago but can tolerate even less now, sorry. Also also, the plot point involving the independent gay senator's past felt extremely bad to me!)
Henry is great! Henry and Alex is great! I believe the chemistry between the two of them! But I did not believe the version of England at all, and the fact that Alex's life just matters more, even though he is at this point only the 22 year old son of a politician and not a public figure in his own right, in the same way Henry is. You can either have a monarchy not really matter at all, in which case there's just no real conflict, or you have to actually examine how it does, and examine the stakes. Also, I'm not suggesting that the current day real life British monarch would be thrilled to have a gay prince. But he's not in line for the throne!!! There is no succession issue here. The only real issue Henry has is that everyone in his family is a fucking monster except for his sister, but not for any real REASON.
And finally, if you're going to write a romance novel about two dudes, can we have some actual sex scenes. This book attempts to fade to black without actually fading to black, so it's quite clear that they're fucking or exchanging blowjobs, but the sex is always talked around rather than shown, and it drove me crazy. Obviously different romance novels have different levels of explicitness, and that's fine, but it felt pretty out of character with how the sex scenes tended to begin.
So yeah! Great set up, easy enough to read, some really decent side characters, but on the whole, a book that I like the idea of much much more than I enjoyed the actual book itself, sorry to say.
Grade: C
Obviously I am in the minority on all of this! It is extremely popular, and so clearly lots of people got something from this story that didn't work for me. But the whole book feels like it exists in too many alternate universes for it to really land anywhere for me at all. The England felt so completely fake to me, and I couldn't understand what this America even is: one where a divorced white woman whose children are half-Mexican American could be the President, and yet her son experiences his personal revelation about his sexuality in a way that felt much closer to 2008 than 2020. Obviously not everyone knows their sexual identity by the time they're 22, no matter how liberal their family or community is. But I didn't believe in the character of Alex at all. He's smart and charismatic and wants to change the world, but he also seems to have exactly one friend in his life and thinks of a guy from Harvard as being hopelessly privileged while attending Georgetown and being the son of a Senator and the fucking President. He's a classic romance novel character, but he's not grounded for me at all. I fundamentally did not believe his isolation or how little he considered how his behavior would impact his mother and himself. I ALSO didn't believe the specific kind of meltdown people had about the relationship once it was revealed. I am fine with secret romance, and obviously the relationship being gay would be more complicated and all that, but everyone treated it as being both far more serious and far less serious than a relationship between two non-elected officials would necessarily be.
(Also, the political machinations going on in the background were fucking nonsense and the sort of pretend version of politics that I might have had more time for four years ago but can tolerate even less now, sorry. Also also, the plot point involving the independent gay senator's past felt extremely bad to me!)
Henry is great! Henry and Alex is great! I believe the chemistry between the two of them! But I did not believe the version of England at all, and the fact that Alex's life just matters more, even though he is at this point only the 22 year old son of a politician and not a public figure in his own right, in the same way Henry is. You can either have a monarchy not really matter at all, in which case there's just no real conflict, or you have to actually examine how it does, and examine the stakes. Also, I'm not suggesting that the current day real life British monarch would be thrilled to have a gay prince. But he's not in line for the throne!!! There is no succession issue here. The only real issue Henry has is that everyone in his family is a fucking monster except for his sister, but not for any real REASON.
And finally, if you're going to write a romance novel about two dudes, can we have some actual sex scenes. This book attempts to fade to black without actually fading to black, so it's quite clear that they're fucking or exchanging blowjobs, but the sex is always talked around rather than shown, and it drove me crazy. Obviously different romance novels have different levels of explicitness, and that's fine, but it felt pretty out of character with how the sex scenes tended to begin.
So yeah! Great set up, easy enough to read, some really decent side characters, but on the whole, a book that I like the idea of much much more than I enjoyed the actual book itself, sorry to say.
Grade: C
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