Second read: I did the audiobook for the second go-around. I had heard someone else say they didn't like the narrator, so I was a little nervous, but I loved the voices he did for all the characters. I also had a lot of fun annotating my physical copy while listening to it. Loved it just as much on the second read as I did the first time around.

First read: I read this book around the time of the US elections in 2020. When I say this book made me ugly cry, I mean it. I was just SO fed up with living in this current time line - the elections were stressing me out and I don't even live in the US; the global pandemic was just really getting to me and making me feel completely lost and hopeless - and then I read this book. This beautiful, charming book, about two star-crossed famous boys in some alternative universe somewhere falling in love with each other, in a universe where the US had a female president instead of who they had in the White House between 2016 and 2020? I sobbed. Reading this book was cathartic, there's no other way I can explain it.

Red, White & Royal Blue holds a very special place in my heart. Hopefully soon I can revisit it again by listening to the audiobook.