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queenluaSo: a thing I intensely love about soap opera and romcom plots is just how gleefully they will play fast & loose with every rule of plausibility and verisimilitude for the sake of a fun goddamned time. I’m reminded of the ridiculousness of Gossip Girl and The O.C., in particular. Gossip Girl gave us a pretentious, moneyed, private high school, and after a couple seasons everyone just happened to simultaneously decide to attend NYU—what the hell? Shouldn’t they be drifting off to like 8 different Ivy Leagues or whatever?
We, the audience, accept this, because look, we know this thin layer of pretense is what’s necessary for a good time—because of course we don’t want to watch the Gossip Girl crew all scatter to different colleges and grow apart, we want the drama. It’s not unlike the “rule of cool” you see in tabletop RPGs—if your idea is cool enough, you can always break the rules.
Red, White and Royal Blue takes this to 11.
Our hero is Nick, son of the US’s first female US president, and oh-so-conveniently he attends Georgetown (so he can live in the White House & keep close to the political action!), and also the vice president’s similarly-aged daughter Nora transfers from MIT to Georgetown (so she cana keep close to the political action & Nick!), and Nick’s older sister lives in the White House because of... no particularly discernible reason, actually, she has her own job... and right, Nick falls in love with the Prince of England.
And look: you cannot convince me Nora would transfer from MIT to Georgetown just to be near her mom & dad. You cannot convince me Alex wouldn’t be at least a little bit of a cynical bastard, given his snarky disposition and sheer proximity to the sausage that is US federal lawmaking. Like, I know people who work on Capitol Hill, and even the most bleeding-heart folks do not believe in HOPE AND CHANGE as much as this dude.
But I also do not care, because in exchange for this thin layer of pretense, you get a hell of a lot of fun. Nora’s so much more fun palin’ around the White House to dunk on Alex; Alex is so much more fun if he’s actually kind of a starry-eyed sap when it comes to politics; I’m not really even into the whole Prince Charming aesthetic but the book’s so delighted with it that even I wound up grinning along.
Alas, the narrative tends toward the saccharine and cloying in the latter half. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at a speech in The West Wing made by one of those GOOD and COMPETENT PEOPLE workin’ HARD to do GOOD THINGS, well. Brace yourself. There’s a lot of it here.
But I did find the net result charming enough overall, and a hell of a lot better than the last they-are-obviously-going-to-make-this-a-romcom-movie book I read, which was uh, The Rosie Project, gag.
Also it turns out in the year of our lord 2020 you can just. You can publish slashfic. It’s ok. What a world. Like, this whole thing kinda read like a high-production-value 2010s-era slashfic, cringey levels of sincerity and all, and while sometimes I kinda roll eyes at profic that reads too much like slashfic, here it honestly just feels fun.
okay yes I might’ve read this because someone said “this is basically a Claude/Lorenz fanfic” and wow they were NOT WRONG
We, the audience, accept this, because look, we know this thin layer of pretense is what’s necessary for a good time—because of course we don’t want to watch the Gossip Girl crew all scatter to different colleges and grow apart, we want the drama. It’s not unlike the “rule of cool” you see in tabletop RPGs—if your idea is cool enough, you can always break the rules.
Red, White and Royal Blue takes this to 11.
Our hero is Nick, son of the US’s first female US president, and oh-so-conveniently he attends Georgetown (so he can live in the White House & keep close to the political action!), and also the vice president’s similarly-aged daughter Nora transfers from MIT to Georgetown (so she cana keep close to the political action & Nick!), and Nick’s older sister lives in the White House because of... no particularly discernible reason, actually, she has her own job... and right, Nick falls in love with the Prince of England.
And look: you cannot convince me Nora would transfer from MIT to Georgetown just to be near her mom & dad. You cannot convince me Alex wouldn’t be at least a little bit of a cynical bastard, given his snarky disposition and sheer proximity to the sausage that is US federal lawmaking. Like, I know people who work on Capitol Hill, and even the most bleeding-heart folks do not believe in HOPE AND CHANGE as much as this dude.
But I also do not care, because in exchange for this thin layer of pretense, you get a hell of a lot of fun. Nora’s so much more fun palin’ around the White House to dunk on Alex; Alex is so much more fun if he’s actually kind of a starry-eyed sap when it comes to politics; I’m not really even into the whole Prince Charming aesthetic but the book’s so delighted with it that even I wound up grinning along.
Alas, the narrative tends toward the saccharine and cloying in the latter half. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at a speech in The West Wing made by one of those GOOD and COMPETENT PEOPLE workin’ HARD to do GOOD THINGS, well. Brace yourself. There’s a lot of it here.
But I did find the net result charming enough overall, and a hell of a lot better than the last they-are-obviously-going-to-make-this-a-romcom-movie book I read, which was uh, The Rosie Project, gag.
Also it turns out in the year of our lord 2020 you can just. You can publish slashfic. It’s ok. What a world. Like, this whole thing kinda read like a high-production-value 2010s-era slashfic, cringey levels of sincerity and all, and while sometimes I kinda roll eyes at profic that reads too much like slashfic, here it honestly just feels fun.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 05:23 am (UTC)Also every time they were texting and sending lovey-dovey emails I was losing my mind thinking "DON'T DO THAT!" and well you know what happened. That whole part of the plot drove me up the wall. And then the villains were so cartoonish which is necessary for a fun feel-good romp, but I still thought it was kind of forced. But whatever, not the point of the book.
You definitely CAN have your slashfic published now! As publishers realize there is money in mlm and wlw content with the bonus of diversity points they are all over it. Especially in the YA market. Have you heard of Carry On? It's yelled about up and down as being Harry Potter-esque slashfic. I never read Harry Potter so it didn't bother (or entice) me as much as people who read both, but I did like it after I embraced the cringe. I also just read a wlw adult romance book and it felt so much like self-insert/celebrity fic. Something to Talk About, I don't recommend it because it was like 330 pages of nothing but one of the MCs acting like a child and only 3 pages of romance at the very end. Nothing to talk about.
I looked up The Rosie Project and it just screams yikes at me through the words "Wife Project." Kind of sounds like the less raunchy male version of The Kiss Quotient (did not like that one either).
I can totally see RW&RB as Claurenz slashno subject
Date: 2020-08-09 05:58 am (UTC)i'm not much a Harry Potter person myself, but am very pleased to hear slashfic along those lines is getting published! MORE STORIES, MORE CAKES, etc etc :D
no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 07:10 pm (UTC)I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU.