Red, White & Royal Blue By Casey McQuiston (2019)

"When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?"

Surprisingly –at least for this bitter, rude, tired old curmudgeon who hates a lot of pop culture and other stuff- Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is not a horrible gay romance novel. Yes it does feature a lot of typical clichés you find in these romance book: the roguish, handsome half-White, half-Mexican (some read Jay Bell’s Something Like Summer) son of the first female president (it’s more or less a parallel universe story where a women won the White House and not the Orange Cheeto. It also features a much different Royal Family as well). And there is a prince, of course, but unlike some of the YA titles that have come out over the last few years, this book has a bit more depth (and a lot more sex) than any I’ve read before. So this one is a bit more adult, a bit more polished.

McQuiston’s prose is strong and she really tries to give all her characters some three dimensional life. Alex is honorable, smart, handsome, and knows what he wants his life to be. Henry (the spare heir) is stuck like all Royals, where duty to others and the family legacy come first. But he knows what he is and (eventually) has the confidence to go with it. Still, at times he came off flat, but I’m unsure if that was the subtle intention of the writer (English reserve is also pretty cliché) or she just invested a lot more into Alex.

She also tried to take on a lot of issues –both political and familial - such as racism, equality, and imperialism (and something I found humorous because Henry goes seems to hate the British Royal Empire, yet doesn’t recognize he’s benefited from this monarchy in every way possible). She also adds complicated family relationships that are right out any TV drama, so yeah. I did struggle, rolled my eyes a many of times with the idea that the First Son and a British prince could go almost anywhere without anyone noticing them or taking pictures of them –especially since they would be surrounded by Secret Service Agents and black SUVs. The fact it took well over 300 hundred pages before the secret was out is just one the many rose-colored aspects the book has.

There is a few other things that bothered me, the deus ex machine ending and the unbelievable blackmail sub-plot featuring a Republican running to oust the president and a openly gay congressman who suddenly supports the him. So the book has a very predictable outcome. Still, McQuiston’s humor and some great dialogue salvage the book.

It’s not perfect, it’s (sadly) forgettable, but it’s also a great book to read at the beach, on a plane, or at lunch when at work.

Books: Groucho Marx, Private Detective By Ron Goulart (1999)

"Groucho and Frank aren't enjoying their latest costar, singing child prodigy Polly Pilgrim, a spoiled ingenue. When a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon is found dead in his palatial home, and Polly's mother, the faded actress Frances London, is accused of his murder, Polly's request for Groucho and Frank to help prove her mother's innocence surprises them. She is convinced that Frances has been framed, and despite the mounting evidence against the washed-up performer, the pair takes on the case."

Part of the charm and conceit of this series is Ron Goulart’s ability to mimic Groucho Marx’s broad humor and his innate ability to turn any question or any statement into a string of non sequiturs. It’s that talent that makes this book fun and light read. Groucho Marx, Private Detective is the second book in the six Goulart wrote and is just as funny and odd –well odd, considering Groucho is playing armature detective in a fictional town called Bayside (which seems set somewhere between Malibu and Santa Monica and seems to share a lot of similarities to Veronica Mars' Neptune)- as the first one. It is set in 1937, some six months or so after Groucho Marx, Master Detective,  and has the comedian still working on radio show while awaiting production to begin on the brothers next film, Room Service.

As with Groucho Marx, Master Detective, Goulart shows Hollywood’s dark side and its legendary ability to make or break stars, and cover up the messes they get in, as well. The murder-mystery part is a bit weak, but Groucho's jokes, some fine period details (like learning about a southern portion of Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills that was once known as Little Santa Street –only a few years ago it was rechristened Burton Way) and guests appearances by everyone from Conrad Nagel to Nathanael West help make this a whole lot of fun.

Book: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore By Robin Sloan (2013)

"The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything; instead, they "check out" large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele's behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends, but when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore's secrets extend far beyond its walls."

Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is one of those high concepts narrative ideas that is currently popular in all forms of media. It has a mystery at its core and a sense of adventures hinted in the umbra, the dark central part of the stores bookshelves. But you also can’t escape the feeling that we’ve seen this all before. I mean take all the 80’s references and sci-fi trapping of Ready Player One out and you’ll find Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.  So yeah, it is not very original concept and the whole secret society -the mystery and the intrigue they generate- has been done countless times before and have been generally executed better.

Still, the book has a likable main character and it is a swift, easy read (it’s not as dense with nostalgia as Ready Player One). There is some quick-witted humor and enough of the “mystery” to keep me reading –though I knew I was going to be a bit disappointed with the ending. Again, sometimes the danger of these high concept ideas is that while they come at you fast, unloading one mystery after another, when it comes to wrapping them up, the plot sort of just fizzles out. And while I got the coda of the book, and the idea that both physical books and e-books can live together in harmony, Sloan’s endless name dropping of Google and Amazon’s Kindle became tedious. They essentially became supporting characters in the story, and that sort of blatant advertising became tedious.

Books: Little By Edward Carey (2018)

"In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do."

In essence, Little is Edward Carey’s novelization of Anna Maria "Marie" Tussaud (née Grosholtz) life (though he used her autobiography as a template, along with other references, some are very unreliable), which offers a more fictional take on the legendary sculptress. This narrative device gives us a less dry look into real history, and can concentrate more on Marie than times she lived, which encompasses the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The book is often macabre, darkly humorous, and sometimes too Dickens-like (there is even a sly comment towards the end of the book where Marie is ruminating on the coming end of her life and has many visitors, including Charles Dickens “A thief, of course. I tell him everything. He takes notes”).

There has been some criticism of the authors’ choices to be loose with real people like Marie Grosholt and Philip Curtius, using some untrustworthy information, especially those of Louis-Sébastien Mercier, a prolific writer of novels, plays, and essays of the era, to help the narrative along. Even her own claims are suspect: During the French Revolution, Marie asserted in her memoirs that she became employed to teach votive making to Élisabeth the sister of Louis XVI; that she was privy to private conversations with the royal family; that she lived with the family for nine years because they adored her work. But there is no evidence today that can confirm these statements.

The book does drag and I often raised an eyebrow on the Widow Picot, who was clearly molded on many Dickens characters, both male and female. Still, the prose is interesting, though it does take getting used to. But it’s an enjoyable book, even if takes a little liberty with real history.