Queerly Beloved follows Amy, a semi-out lesbian bartender and baker in Oklahoma, when she gets fired from her job at a Christian bakery for being queer. It's also important to note that this takes place in the mid-2010s, before marriage equality in the US.

Amy felt like a contradiction. Everything she said about herself did not at all match how she acted. She talks about feeling like herself in front of Charley (the love interest), then proceeds to keep secrets and miscommunicate by omission to her. She says that she feels happy and free around her best friend and his boyfriend, then spends every waking moment around them complaining about her life. There are so many instances of this happening, and while I'd like to chalk it up to that "people-pleasing" attitude she claims, it honestly just felt inconsistent. And the other characters weren't much better, unfortunately. I sympathized with them more than I did with Amy, but I also felt like they were underdeveloped, only there to call her "babe" and be the stereotypical queer supporting characters. Amy's friends blended in with each other, despite the representation being good.

I noticed that a lot of the time, Amy's experiences and moments of revelation were really just outlets for the author to speak through. And, the thing is, I agree with all the messages. It just wasn't worked in well and came off preachy. In general, there was a lot of describing the moment, rather than showing it. The moments of chemistry didn't come across as such (the only reason I knew that's how it was supposed to come across was because it was explicitly stated), and the relationship frustrated me more than anything. Amy and Charley were both so hesitant to share with the other, which did not feel like the beginnings of a meaningful relationship.

Queerly Beloved is not about Amy and Charley falling in love. It's about Amy finding her place in Oklahoma as a queer person. There were definitely some moments that I truly enjoyed, parts I laughed at, or was pleasantly surprised by. I loved the connections to the beginning of the story, and Amy's journey is a fun one to go on — the characters and writing just didn't work for me.

I wanted to love this book so badly, but unfortunately it is a DNF for me. I love the premise, and from the 30% that I read I really enjoyed the conversations surrounding the homophobia that the main character was facing in the workplace. I also loved the found family element in here as that is one of my favourite tropes in any genre. There are so many things about this book that should have worked perfectly for me, but it just didn't. I found the main character to be insufferable with the people-pleasing, which I understand is the point of her character and something she would be overcoming throughout the book, but it was driving me up the wall. I wasn't a fan of the love interest either, and I didn't buy the chemistry between them at all.

I think this is one of those cases where the problem lies with me and not the book. I don't think Queerly Beloved is a bad book by any means, and I can definitely see why someone else might enjoy this one. It just wasn't the book for me!

A fun and fresh queer read that surprised me. I enjoyed reading about Amy's internal growth as she learns more about herself and how to live in relationship to those around her. It was a cute romance, but for me the real joy of this book was the thoughtful reflection on queer life in middle america.

This was a really cute sapphic book! I love that our main character Amy has a chosen family. That is always something that I enjoy in books. I feel like the romance could have been flushed out a bit more. But overall a good, quick read

"Queerly Beloved" was an enjoyable romcom that I would recommend to those interested. Charley is extremely underdeveloped and the novel feels overlong, and would have benefited from more editing and condensing. Despite this, this is a fine book that I can see others enjoying (even if I didn't enjoy it myself).

I did not connect to this book as much as I thought I would. I felt there was some stereotyping especially of Amy's gay friends. I felt there lacked some depth to Charley's character and I wish we found out more about her. I really wanted to like this book but I felt like nothing happened in the book.

This is a delightful queer story about finding yourself and the strength it takes to show yourself to the world. I enjoyed the nuanced discussions, the friendships, and the community of folks found it all aspects of this protagonist's life.

I liked this but didn’t love it. It didn’t feel as rom-com as I expected from the cover and blurb. More of a LGBTQ+ own voices, coming of age/coming into your own self story. Which was great, and as a cishet white woman offered a deeper perspective into what it’s like to come out, and how that’s not a one time thing, but an ongoing process.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for my honest review.

Amy, a baker and bartender who can’t help but also be a people pleaser, is a bridesmaid for hire. She wants to find her own happy ending in life and when she’s fired for being gay, having worked on a Christian bakery, she decides the wedding scene is the way to go. Bridesmaids for hire is a real job and she thinks she can find her true authentic self doing just that.

Yay for gay romance but I wasn’t a fan of the Christians turning her away aspect. I mean come on, not every religion is against it. I understand the book is set in 2010 era but for some reason that aspect rubbed me wrong. The story also lacked a romantic build up for me. What I did like is the own voices and finding yourself.. if only the main character wasn’t so whiplash in her personality

Sad to give this one just 3.5 stars.
I'm a bit torn with this one. Because I really enjoyed the parts about Amy finding herself and figuring out how she felt about everything from being out and proud in public to the weddings she helps happen despite them being illegal for the LGBTQ community, but I never felt the spark that supposedly existed between her and Charley and that's a bit of a bad thing when the book you're reading is meant to be a romance. The interactions they had never felt like enough in quantity or quality for there to be such a great connection as the book claims they have.
Dumon is great at exploring relationships outside of the romance because I loved seeing Amy interact with other characters and how she changed and grew as she learned to be open and herself with everyone around her. The scenes where she's open with others about her worries and feelings are some of the best of the book and, frankly, what kept me reading when the romance thread of the plot fizzled for me.
Another element I really liked was the discussions about being out and proud in a place that constantly denies and attacks your existence. The way Dumond uses the different characters to give voice to different, and totally valid, opinions and views to create a fuller picture is brilliant and I can see it giving hope to LGBTQ readers and a wider perspective to the rest of us.
Overall, the story has some great elements and some not-so-great elements, but I enjoyed reading it for the different perspective and the great character development.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the great read!

I love a wedding-themed book and was excited for the opportunity to read Queerly Beloved. Centering around a baker who gets firest after the Christina owner finds out she is queer, Amy creates her own business as a bridesmaid-for-hire, with the help of her family and friends.

While this has fantastic rom-com elements, from an epic first date and great chemistry between love interests, I enjoyed that Amy's character arc wasn't solely focused on love, but also had threads of her business, friendship and personal growth.

But what I most appreciated about this book was the insight and nuance of feelings around the fight for same-sex marriage. I felt like I learned more about the diverse perspectives within the queer community by experiencing the emotions and dialogue amongst these characters. I wanted more justice for Amy as it relates to her firing from Daily Bread but ultimately loved where author Susie Drummond decide to focus the storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dial Press Trade Paperback and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an advanced copy and the opportunity to provide my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publishers for sending me an arc of this book in exchange for my review! Queerly Beloved is a pretty timely book and I found it very interesting. It is a very character driven novel and that isn't my favorite but the background and character build up was beneficial to us in this case! It had good representation and an overall enjoyable read!

DNF at ~46%. I tried y’all and I just couldn’t. My time was better spent doing literally anything else. Initially rated this 3 stars for benefit of the doubt and that it wasn’t to my taste but gave up on being nice by the time I wrote the review. The book is set back in 2013 where we didn’t have marriage equality at the time. The focus on this was just hitting too close to home right now with the Supreme Court possibly overturning Roe v Wade and making abortion illegal. I was expecting a lighthearted and cute book about lesbians to escape from doomscrolling socials but that is not at all what I got.

Let’s talk about the good stuff first. Queerly Beloved takes place in a very Christian 2013 Tulsa, Oklahoma and follows the perspective of Amy. Amy has come out as a lesbian to her family and her friends but hides her sexuality from the non-queer Tulsa community, especially when she works at the bakery. Amy is a baker turned professional bridesmaid after a series of events leaves her jobless and as a substitute bridesmaid in a couple’s wedding party. While she is figuring out what to do with her life, Amy is also starting a new relationship with a girl she met at the bakery.

This book heavily explores the intertwining of the LGBTQ+ community and religion. There’s quite a lot of focus on how religion has shaped peoples’ perspectives and what they have grown up being taught is right or wrong.

The cast of characters are also very diverse, each with their own struggles, familial dynamics, and thoughts of political issues. The characters are all very well-constructed and are easy to connect with. I think I enjoyed the side characters more than the main character.

An on to the bad, inevitable and inescapable with this book. This story is marketed as a rom-com and that is so far beyond a lie that it can’t even be found. There is some romance but it is more of a subplot or space filler. There’s no big development in the romance either and was lackluster. The communication between the two in the relationship was abysmal and there was no spark, nothing to make me root for them.

There’s was way too much focus on food and I get that the main character was a baker but it’s bad when I was skipping pages at a time because it was all talk about food. This book is about 400 pages long and if you took out all the mention of food, could easily be under 100 pages. That is likely exaggerated but you get the point.

There was also so many things going on in this book. You’ve got Amy starting a relationship with Charley while trying to fend off Amy’s ex-girlfriend, Amy losing her job and creating a business, Amy discovering her own personal line for when/where to be out, the intersection and polar differences of LGBTQ+ and religion, Amy overcoming her male/society-controlled beliefs on period sex, marriage equality , Charley being open about her sexuality in public while Amy is not. It’s just all way too much happening and feels disconnected. There’s 1000 things happening and if only two, maybe three, were focused on, this could have actually been a good book. This book just ain’t it and I don’t recommend reading unless you like to torture yourself (def harsh but I said what I said).

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an eARC in exchange for a review. Everything stated in this review is of my own honest thoughts and opinions.

Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the mid 2000s, this queer romance delves into important topics like gay rights and same sex marriage and I absolutely adored every minute!! Amy is a semi-closeted gay woman trying to earn a living in her very Red state. When she meets Charley the attraction is instantaneous. Unfortunately, homophobia in her small town threatens to tear them apart and Amy has to decide how she'll reconcile her new profession as a bridesmaid for hire with her political convictions that everyone deserves to have the right to marry. Full of heart and great depth, this book was so much more than your average 'rom-com.' Perfect for fans of Bridesmaid for hire or Count your lucky. I can't wait to read more by this author and am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance review copy!

In all honesty, I had a difficult time with this book. Content-wise it had much promise but I feel that the story did not come together in a fluid way. I really wanted to like the story but it just sort of fell flat for me.

I did appreciate the amazing LGBTQIA representation that the author brought into the book but didn’t feel any sparks.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this eARC in return for my honest opinion. I feel this one had promise but didn’t deliver.
2.5 ⭐️ on this one.

This book is way too long/rambling in parts, and desperately needed more editing, but I loved it anyway. The cover screams rom-com, but it’s really a quarter-life crisis story about a Oklahoma lesbian finding her joy, and learning to live authentically. There’s a love interest, but it takes a backseat for most of the book. I’m many ways, the main relationship arc is about friendship, not romance.

Amy was such a sympathetic character, a people pleasing femme who loves baking wedding cakes, watching Say Yes to the Dress, and all things romance…but struggles with how to be her queer self among all the trappings of straight culture that she’s surrounded with. It’s not quite a coming out story, because Amy is out and has a supportive Mom and chosen family; it’s more about making peace with being out in a hostile social environment. And finding your work path. I thought her personal growth arc was interesting and unique. And it was fun reading a lighthearted queer story set in Tulsa.

In her debut novel, Susie Dumond delivers a great quick read.
Even though this wasn't exactly my favorite, I see promise in her writing style and look forward to giving it another try.

I was looking forward to the book, but unfortunately I didn't love it as much as I hoped to. I thought it would have a bit more of a romcom feel, which it was lacking and I felt would help the story. It just didn't hold my attention as I would have hoped. Thank you to Netgalley and Dial Press for the ARC.

This book was not for me. It was not the romcom I was expecting. I unfortunately DNF'd after a few chapters.

I really, really wanted to like this book. It had the set up that I always look for - queer, romance, baker - so I was all in. However, unfortunately, this book missed so many marks.

First - the setting. If the MC hadn't mentioned that it was 2013, I don't think I would have totally realized that. I mean, it talked about gay marriage being illegal but it also had extensive pronoun awareness which really wasn't something in 2013.

The romance - or lack there of. I mean, yes there was sex and a burgeoning relationship but it wasn't the focus. This was really a coming into yourself book for the MC, Amy, than a romance. I don't think Charley was really fleshed out, honestly. I couldn't connect. I could barely connect with Amy, if I'm honest. And I was a struggling queer in the 2010s!

It just felt as if it relied a lot on stereotypes and really could have been categorized as general queer fiction more than anything else.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing an arc of this book in change of an honest review.