A moving and witty romance book about finding yourself as a queer person after having grown up in a restrictive religious community

This book was an interesting ride. While I love an LGBT Romance especially one that includes food and a crazy journey, the ending unfortunately didn’t give me that satisfying feeling once I was done.

Will always love an amazing queer romance. The character development was on point, Biggest hit for me was focusing on the rights surround the LGBTQIA+ community

I did like the romance in this book, and I loved how everything was wrapped up in the end and everything worked out, but it was a wild ride.

Amy was very relatable. Amy and Charley...so cute.

Some solid representation in here, too.

"Queerly Beloved" is a let down of a queer adult romance and one you should likely skip. This book had all the promise in the world with a great foundation and premise, but the writing falls flat with poor execution and bad characters. It took a lot in me not to DNF this one.

I was excited for this book because I am on the hunt for a sapphic book that makes me feel warm comforting rom-com feelings like many Achillean books have. This book was so stereotypically gay that it felt almost homophobic. There are two sets of gay men that are literally the exact same, one set is just twenty years older, but they both are reduced to “my gay best friend and his husband”. The love interest is basically “smart butch lesbian” and that’s the extent of her personality and character growth. The main character is self-centered and hypocritical for making her entire life about weddings while hating on straight weddings the entire book.

This book is advertised as romance when it barely had any romance except for the mention of weddings happening in the background. It’s also hard to be a romance book when your love interest is hardly ever around. This isn’t a story about falling in love. The plot lacked purpose and direction.

I wanted to love this book but I couldn’t relate to the characters honestly.1/5 stars because the characters fell short and the plot was lacking for me.

Can’t wait to read this book with my class on reading the romance to analyze the recent turn toward queer romance in the genre.

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond is a romance with a strong, underlying message of acceptance. When a queer baker is fired from her job at a Christian bakery, she has to figure out another job for herself. So she becomes a substitute bridesmaid, and she learns a lot of lessons about herself and other people. I really appreciated the underlying message of acceptance and the way this author spoke on Christians and their approach towards the LGBTQIA+ community. It was honest and thoughtful. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I liked this story, but don't feel as though it delivered on what the summary had me expecting. The love story was cute, and well developed, and I'm an absolute sucker for anything with a found family, like Amy has at the bar. But the description left me excited to read a bridesmaid-for-hire romance, and that part of the plotline seemed to fall a little flat. I'd have liked to see more stories about wedding misadventures, maybe even something invovling Charley, but as it is, I enjoyed what there was enough to read the whole thing.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer: I read this novel in February 2023 and am getting around to the review now in June 2023. As you would understand from the rest of this review, I can't recall specifics of this novel.

I love the cover and had relatively high hopes for this novel but something about the couple I couldn't connect with. I used the E-ARC and a Libby loan audiobook to get through this novel. Neither format kept me engaged enough and by the time the third act rolled around, I found myself not rooting for the couple's happily ever after.

While I appreciate the timeline effort the author put into the novel, I found this novel not to be a memorable romcom for me and unfortunately not one I ever plan to reread.

Let me start off by saying the narrator for the audiobook is absolutely fantastic, and I highly recommend listening!

This book was a lot of fun, with unique quirky characters that I adore to no end, and fun new business idea that seems more trouble than it's worth. But definitely entertaining!

But this book also opened up a lot of serious topics. Mainly concerning marriage equality for LGBTQIA+ people and maintaining a professional work-life for queer people. I'm not sure how to describe the emotions it made me feel. I was happy and sad and all over the place every time pretty much anything happened that had Amy profess her queerness, which was nerve-wracking that it came up so many times. But that's not just the book, that's being queer. Coming out is never just a one time thing, and this book deeply gets into that.

All in all, I love it. It was brilliant. I will say that I cared more about the politics addressed and the friendships in the book than the actual relationship of the MC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Such a great read! A showing of what it is like to be a queer woman in an area where queerness comes with judgement and ostracism.

I recommend this one as often as possible and it is one that has earned a place on my physical shelf for rereads in the future.

Queerly Beloved is set in 2013 Tulsa, Oklahoma and follows Amy, a semi-closeted lesbian baker. When Amy gets fired from a Christian bakery after the owner discovers her queerness, Amy starts a bridesmaid-for-hire business.

I would personally not categorize this book as a romance. While it does have all the classic romance elements, the relationship is not the prominent story in this book. I found it read more like a story of self discovery with a romance subplot. After reading a few other reviews, it looks like others agree with me on this.

Overall this book was meh— didn’t love or hate it.

This is a great book for those who want to read a book that's more romance - adjacent, than fully romance. It's more about the main character finding herself. I would still recommend this as I enjoyed it so much!

Queerly Beloved is a cute romantic tale of two women falling in love in Oklahoma. Dumond creates a charming roster of family and friends.

This was my first queer book to read, and I did enjoy it! While I think the plot could have been written a little more thoroughly, I understand that it being a YA book makes me not the intended audience for this. It was a cute, quick read that I am sure many others will enjoy.

I received this book for free from Netgalley for an honest review.

Romantic and sweet. Just what I needed in a lgbtq rom com

While I did enjoy this book, there were a number of issues that irked me. The story purportedly takes takes place in 2013, right around when a judge
ruled I favor of gay marriage. The politics of the time hit home in the story, but the rest of it doesn’t feel like 2013. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed much more like it took place in the present day.
Both Charley and Amy were charming at times, and pure eyeroll at others. I was never sure of their motivations from one moment to the next.
Amy’s coming to terms with and recognizing the importance of being out was interesting, and I really got a sense of her taking a journey to a better place.
The ending was a little far fetched, but I enjoyed it just the same.