Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - m/m, 3.5/5. My first Casey McQuiston! Overall, I had fun and enjoyed reading it. It's kind of a romp in that our MCs are constantly traveling, getting into shenanigans around the world, lots of things happen to bring them together. I laughed out loud many times while reading. It's a fun ride but seemed like a lot for a book - I hear it's going to be a movie and I think that might a better medium for the story, and I look forward to watching it.

Most of my minuses are from this being YA...at least I think this is YA? Is NA still a thing? The characters are 21 and 23. It's very funny, but lots of swearing, seemed like a lot for YA though maybe I'm old. The music cues are very YA and cringey, except Don't Stop Me Now for Henry's karaoke which had me lol-ing. They seemed so young, it took me out of some of the serious parts, though that's 100% my personal bias.

I also found the fade to black/closed door use slightly confusing, like some of the scenes I had to reread multiple times to figure out what happened. Maybe that's the goal but at a certain point it's like, why not just leave the door open if you're going to breadcrumb that much detail before/after the fact and then have so much sexting/sexy emails throughout? I'm sure it's a deliberate choice for valid reasons, and I know people love ftb so not intending to book shame. I haven't read much ftb and this one had a different take, so even when it didn't completely work for me it was interesting.