I think, my choice of title gives away my feelings towards this book. Nevertheless, I will try to provide an objective review of this book, “try” being the keyword here. If you’re new here, “no spoilers” is a myth in my reviews so proceed with caution if you haven’t read the book yet or don’t want spoilers in general.

The first thing that strikes you while reading is the similarity of the plot with Red, White and Royal Blue. The general plot follows the cliched rom-com path but hey, that’s why you pick up a rom-com in the first place, it’s not like you’re going in expecting some great twist and a big reveal, so no disappointments here. The plot is adequately predictable and mushy for your light romance read.

As you can probably guess, from the title, cover art and if you have read the aforementioned book, it is about a royal – the Prince of Wales himself – falling in love with an American commoner. Carter is your ordinary guy from NYC, who finds himself enamoured by the prince. He, soon, finds himself in the Buckingham Palace facing off with the Queen in the middle of the night while trying to sneak in to the Prince’s room. Well, the plot has adequate comedy as well.

But Carter here takes comedy a little too far as he keeps screwing up his royal appearances with Edgar, the Prince of Wales. To make matters worse, Carter is exposed cheating on BBC live while giving an interview with Edgar as his toxic ex sabotages his royal love affair. Honestly, very naive of Carter. My guess is that the author could not think of any other catastrophe for the couple to overcome.

The pity-party begins from thereon as Carter realizes how badly he had screwed up and hurt Edgar, the lonely prince who vows to shut down his life and all attempts at love. Carter flies back to America.

Not all was as bad as the characterizations. The very public nature of the romance reads frighteningly real and well, it was partly why things go haywire between the couple. The other characters were not really delved into and even Carter didn’t have much substance.

I did not like how the couple became the spokespersons for the entire gay community overnight. Though an openly gay Prince of Wales was a good touch. I found it very weird how Prince Edgar was painted as the villain in reacting to the cheating on national television. He was portrayed as a partner who didn’t trust his partner but amazingly, the scene and the consequences did not hold Carter responsible in any way.

For someone who has a lot of inferiority complex, which is then triggered further by dating a prince, Carter does have an amazingly supportive family, an aspect that can make this book a comfort read. The parents and friends, along with a sister and a great aunt all exist for Carter to help him through this situation in live and that’s their only function. Not much more is divulged about their own personal lives. I liked the great aunt though, she is sassy and befriends the Queen quickly. That unlikely friendship is something I might be interested in reading more of.

Having said all of that, I am appalled by the responsibility deposited upon Carter concerning the abdication of Edgar. I liked the ending where Carted started becoming honest with himself and I liked the humour of the author throughout the plot.

I thought the characters were a little too extravagant, Carter with his damsel-in-distress theme, Edgar with his grief and the romance with it’s pace. My complain with Red, White and Royal Blue has always been that we didn’t get to know more about the prince there, which was completely satisfied here. It can be categorized as a gay Disney plot overall. Not complaining, if you’re looking for something light and fun to binge read, it is your weekend fix. Two stars on my list.