I reread Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston this week . . . watching the trailer for the upcoming movie can only satisfy the itch for so long before I need to immerse myself in the pages. It’s been a couple of rereads since I did the physical book — the audiobook is well done and perfect for long drives — but it felt nice to hold it in my hands, to take to the beach. Also, I forgot how much faster I can go through the story when I’m reading vs audio.
I cried a lot this time. I don’t know if there’s a standalone novel where the emotionality comes so alive for me. I love every part of this book. From the bisexual pride to the 2016 revisionist history to the perfect encapsulation of my favorite enemies-to-lovers trope with a queer premise I thought was reserved for fanfiction.
And I love this passage, which I know anyone who has read the novel thinks about all the time:
So, imagine we’re all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there’s that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That’s the maximum depth of feeling you’ve ever experienced. And then, the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it’s all right because that thing will happen to me when I’m older and wiser, and I’ll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, the worst possible feeling, won’t seem so terrible.
But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking—when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn’t just stop at the bottom —it goes all the way down.
I’ve been thinking about that last line. I’ve been feeling it. “ . . . it doesn’t just stop at the bottom — it goes all the way down.”
What a cathartic reread.
With Love,
Natalie