Like, what was the plot of Red, White, and Royal Blue? A prince and the first son hate each other and then they love each other. That may sound like a weird thing to say, but a lot of romances don’t. One of my favorite things about this book is that it has an actual plot. She’s obsessive and meticulous and while obviously I did not spend my life obsessively dedicated to finding a missing uncle, I can relate to a lot of her neuroses. August alone is our heroine, though, and I love her. She has significantly less pagetime, but through the various clippings and personal ads, we get a really good sense of who she is. Jane is August’s love interest, but she is not an equal deuteragonist. Jane-by virtue of her supernatural situation-gets less chance to exist beyond August, but that’s forgivable. August spends enough time with Jane that the readers understand why she loves her and why it’s important that they be together, but she also spends enough time away and with other people that we never lose track of who she is as an individual beyond Jane. The rest of the world doesn’t disappear when August gets wrapped up in Jane: her coworkers notice when she misses work, she loses track of her classes and, and her roommates make fun of her for being single-minded. August has things going on in her life besides her romantic entanglement, and although she does occasionally put them on hold to focus on Jane, she acknowledges this and has legitimate reasons for doing so.
Our leads, August and Jane, fall for each other relatively quickly-as is the case with most novels specifically coded romance-but their relationship still unfolds at a reasonable pace. One Last Stop, however, nails the pacing. It sped through periods I would have liked to spend more time in to rush to romantic reunions. My biggest issue with Red, White, and Royal Blue was the pacing.
And then I read it and loved it.įirst and foremost, Casey McQuiston’s writing has matured between her first novel and this one. Yet another lackluster book for queer girls. Before I read it, I saw the sales that lagged considerably behind its predecessor and a few less-than-stellar reviews and kind of resigned myself to disappointment. As August-with the help of her vibrant, kooky roommates-strives to help Jane get unstuck in time, she realizes that she might just be breaking her own heart in the process. When August, who spent her childhood helping track down the uncle who disappeared before she was born, moves to New York the last thing she expects is to fall in love with a girl who has been displaced from the 1970s and is stuck in the Q train of the subway. It’s possible that this allowed me to come into it with more reasonable expectations, but I think that I’d’ve preferred it either way. It has done all right, but it has not been a runaway success. One Last Stop, however, hasn’t made the same waves. I remember feeling the tiniest bit let down because everyone else liked it more than I did I liked it when I expected to love it. I expected Red, White, and Royal Blue to be one of those I-can’t-stop-thinking-about-it books, but it wasn’t for me. The problem with overblown expectations is that they’re rarely met. I almost feel hipster because I read it before this huge wave, which is ridiculous because I was totally a bandwagon fan. I read it back in 2019 because I was seeing rave reviews of it everywhere I turned, and it has only gotten bigger since then. It has been immensely popular for a very long time. But there was a lot of hype for it, even when I read it. It’s a sweet, optimistic queer romance and I’m always game for that. If you’re looking for a fast-paced linear whodunnit with a foreseeable conclusion, you’ll need to pick up a fictional detective mystery instead 🕵️♀️ But if you’re interested in how a real cold case gets solved, in the role institutions play in our lives, in the way our stories shape who we are and what we know about the world – you absolutely must put We Keep The Dead Close on the top of your to-be-read pile.Unpopular opinion: I liked Casey McQuiston’s sophomore novel One Last Stop a lot more than Red, White, and Royal Blue.ĭon’t get me wrong. But it’s not as simple as “there was a murder on campus and Harvard covered it up”… 😯 This one is for the dark academia girlies who need a wake-up call ⏰ We Keep The Dead Close is the harsh reality of the ✨literary aesthetic✨ Cooper lifts the veil on the cryptic world of elite tertiary education, the pot-holed track to tenure for professors and the politics of progression for students.
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