Cute, quirky, and queer!

I love a good queer romance, and think there is large gap for it in the romance market. This was a fun and sweet read that I think will appeal to a large audience!

Honestly I was super excited by the premise of Queerly Beloved but I'm torn now that I've read it.

I love the idea of the book but I'm not sure that I ended up rooting for the romance as much as I wanted to. Amy and Charley didn't quite feel as compelling as I wanted but the conversations around queerness and identity were wonderful!

Id recommend more as a fiction with romance rather than a romance heavy book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

I just couldn’t get into this at all. It’s set in Tulsa OK (a red state) in 2013 and just seemed very anachronistic and I couldn’t get into it. I wouldn’t have minded the characters but maybe in another setting? I don’t know. It seemed like gay was Amy’s only personality trait. This was also a very tell instead of show style of writing which is not my preference.

5 ⭐️
-
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the e-ARC of this book! I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
-
Oh wow did I LOVE this book. And it was such a great read during Pride month!

Susie Dumond's debut focuses on Amy, a goody-two-shoes baker at a conservative bakery by day and lesbian bartender at local gay bar Ruby Red's by night in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Taking place in 2013, it's not illegal when someone outs Amy to her boss and she's subsequently fired for her "sinful lifestyle". After saving the day at a family wedding with a cake gone wrong, Amy stumbles into a job as a paid bridesmaid at a few weddings to make some quick cash. But what starts as a favor turns into an entire business for people-pleasing Amy and she has to decide if playing bridesmaid to make ends meet is worth continuing to hide her identity in the heteronormative wedding industry and a community that isn't as queer friendly as she wants it to be. Meanwhile, Amy also meets and falls hard for the cute new queer engineer girl in town, Charley. With a new relationship on top of everything else, something always has to go wrong.

This was SUCH a sweet book. There were a lot of moments that hit close to home knowing that gay marriage was on the precipice of being legalized, but wasn't QUITE there yet during the events of this book. I loved all of the characters in her community who fell across the LGBTQ+ spectrum and the different personalities of the brides she worked with during her jobs. I was also enamored with the specificity of Tulsa that made it feel so real. (I'd LOVE to visit Ruby Red's in all its Wizard of Oz glory!) The romance between Amy and Charley felt tentative, yet on the precipice of something really great - I just wish we understood a little more about Charley's background and why she acted the way she did. Amy's dynamic with her mom and Uncles (her chosen family friends) seemed very natural and it was great to see how her friendships with best friends Joel and Damian were put to the test and came out stronger for it in the end. It was such a unique little world and I was sad to see it go when I finished.

While there were frustrating moments watching them happen from the outside (why did she wait SO LONG to apologize to her friends?!), the resolution and epilogue made it totally worth waiting to get there. If only we could taste some of Amy's delicious creations for ourselves! All in all, I'd devour another one of Dumond's books in a heartbeat.

I’m always on the lookout for more contemporary sapphic romances, especially set in the southern United States, so I was VERY excited to get my hands on an arc of Queerly Beloved. And that’s where the excitement ended. This book had great story concepts, but needed some serious editing - there were so many different storylines. Is it about someone hiding their queer identity at work? Or a professional bridesmaid? Or a sapphic romance? Or a coming of age story? It was trying to do too much and ended up succeeding at none of it. The side characters were all severely underdeveloped and seemed to rely on queer stereotypes. Also this should not be marketed as a romance, it’s barely a part of the storyline and has the most forced HEA of all time.

So many content warnings for homophobia.

Last thing - while I love the frequent use of pronouns in the book, that would not have been normal in 2013.

Amy is a queer baker in a Christian bakery in Tulsa. She knows it would not be ok for her boss to know so she sensors how she is and instead goes by Amelia. When the bakery owner finds out that she is gay she fires her. Amy is heartbroken as identifies baking as part of her. When she gets the offer to be a paid bridesmaid at someone’s wedding she ends up enjoying it and making a business out of it but she finds herself struggling to be her true self in her business, which strains her relationships around her.

I loved this book from the beginning! I loved the characters. I enjoyed that this was not your typical rom-com and the issues that Amy faced were very relatable. I would enjoy reading another book by Susie Dumond.

I was really back and forth on this book the whole time. Half the time I thought, what a cute story. The other half I felt like it was offensive to the community. Some comments and lines were off putting and made me cringe.

I couldn’t get on board to like Amy. She was needy and a very “why me” kind of character. She seemed very one note and flat.

With the lack of wlw contemporary romances out there, I wanted to love this book but I just didn't. While the plotline of a closest woman in Oklahoma is an entirely realistic scenario, the way it was executed within this book made it difficult for me to even enjoy the romance.

I was so excited to read this, but I felt really disappointed after reading the entire book. Marketed as a romance, this is definitely more a contemporary, general fiction novel, with romance. Amy is a very selfish, self absorbed character. All of the other characters were very much stereotypes. It was difficult to tell that this book was set in 2013- I didn't know until it was said explicitly 75% into the book! Characters introduce themselves with their pronouns in a very clunky, inorganic way. It's very 2022. There are so many rants and speeches in this book.

I wish Dumond had stuck to either baking or weddings instead of trying to mash them together as one theme.

This was cute! QUEERLY BELOVED is a contemporary novel about a lesbian baker/bartender turned bridesmaid-for-hire in Oklahoma. The story takes place in 2013/2014, just before gay marriage was legalized in all US states. The main character had to balance what it meant for her to be working in the wedding industry, while her and her community were not legally able to get married themselves. This inner conflict was explored in a poignant and heartfelt way. I loved this novel’s emphasis on the queer community and how it’s really important for individuals who live in unaccepting regions (like the US South).

I wanted to love the set-up of the actual romance, but the romance took a backseat to Amy’s self discovery story. Which is fine, but surely not reflected within how this book is pitched and shelved. I also didn’t really love Charley, the love interest, as a character. I thought she was really flat and I (surprisingly) enjoyed the scenes outside of the romance a lot more. This story was stronger as a love letter to the queer community.

A sweet (pun intended) story about becoming your true self and figuring out what you want out of life. Coming out can be hard, particularly if someone accidently outs you before you're ready.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Queerly Beloved was honestly a really cute book to dive into. In this, you will meet Amelia - aka Amy. Her and I have something in common. She loves to bake, likes weddings, and adores flowers. Whereas I just like to bake (lol). She's also surrounded by this huge queen found family and I really adored that too. I definitely saw myself in her mom, who is completely supportive of her, because that's how I am with my own family and friends.

Even though I liked Amy, it did honesty take me a while to feel that way. She definitely had some ups and downs with me. Though, if I'm being truly honest, the only character that I really didn't like was Donna. She was a real piece of work and I hope she realizes what she did was completely horrible.

Other than that, I sort of liked the romance. That too also had its ups and downs. At first, they were really cute, and I couldn't help myself from shipping them. Then it started to seem like they were moving at different paces. So, I totally saw some of the drama coming before it did.

In the end, I'm glad that everything worked out between everyone. The epilogue was so freaking cute and put a smile on my face. I'm honestly really happy that I got the chance to jump into this book and can't wait for everyone else to do so.

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond is the queer 27 dresses you never knew you needed. It’s 2013 in Tulsa Oklahoma, and Amy is living her life as a closeted baker at the religiously conservative but annoyingly delicious bakery by day, and an out bartender at the queer bar by night. She is very good at blending in and putting other people’s needs before her own. But one day, Charley walks into the bakery as she closes up and a whole new world of romantic possibilities opens up to her. Charley just got an engineering job in the oil industry in town and Amy cannot wait to be her tour guide. Her chosen family is thrilled she is dating Charley and living authentically. But when the opportunity to work in the wedding industry as a bridesmaid for hire arises, Amy is willing to go stealth once more to get the gig. She is excellent at wedding crafts, baking, and problem-solving, she loves the wedding industry, and she needs the jobs. Amy just has to decide how much of herself she is willing to give up to make others more comfortable.
If it’s not clear yet, I absolutely adored this book set in the lead-up to the supreme court case that legalized gay marriage in the US. In the book club guide, Dumond notes, “not many queer stories were being published in 2013. The ones that were being published were often mainstream voices, so I think there’s a dearth in queer history from this period of time in those ‘flyover’ states.” Her thoughts get at what I think makes this book feel so different from other queer wedding romances or romances from the 2010s. Being so 2013 is one of the things I loved about the novel. This will date me, but I was in high school in 2013 and when I say the references hit hard, I am not exaggerating in any way. I still remember when it was odd, even in New England, to be out in school, or to see queer media with any frequency. So, I love what this book does to fill in the gaps and speak to a period that is almost a decade behind us now.
That is not to say the whole book is a political treatise on marriage equality in the 2010s. It is also an excellent queer romance novel. Amy’s found family is wonderfully flawed and supportive. They inhabit the space a breathe life into Amy’s Tulsa, where she has family members who supported her when she came out as a lesbian and those who shunned her. She has a job at a wonderfully queer space, Ruby Red’s. (It took me an embarrassingly long time, i.e. until page 348, to realize they kept mentioning the Wizard of Oz doormat because the bar is called Ruby Red’s after Dorothy’s red slippers.) She also has a job in conservative, and homophobic spaces. Having her friends and family react to Amy’s life helps the reader fully understand her daily life. Finally, her love interest, Charley, is a masc of center lesbian whose job as an engineer takes her out of town more often than not. They are wonderfully supportive of one another and although the trouble they have keeps them apart, when they come back together they can be radically honest with one another. I adored the epilogue and their relationship in general.
You can have your queer wedding cake and eat it too with this slice of the 2010s. Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond is the southern sapphic romance that speaks to a queer community that loves love and weddings even if the wedding industry does not always love them back.
I would like to thank Dial Press from Penguin Random House for providing my reviewers copy of Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond in exchange for my honest review.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community who lived much of my life closeted, I went into Queerly Beloved really excited for the story of Amy and Charley.

There were parts of the story I did enjoy- the chosen family aspect and young queer love (duh), The cover was absolutely adorable and was a major selling point for me.

However, as an overall story, Queerly Beloved just fell flat for me. The character of Charley had next to no personality, Amy seemed to be hung up on her ex girlfriend with how much the character talked about her, and while billed as a romance, the romantic aspect of the book took a backseat to the actual coming to terms with her own identity that Amy did throughout the book.

I wanted to like it. No, I wanted to LOVE it and find another queer author that could become an automatic buy for future works, but unfortunately this book left me wanting much more than it gave.

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

I really wanted to like this story, but it did not seem like there was a real point to the story. I am not sure if I just did not connect with it or if it was boring.

this is easily a five-star read for me! as a fan of baking and reading, i was instantly drawn to “queerly beloved” but there’s so much more love, friendships, and self-discovery woven between the pages. to me, any amazing rom-com is full of more than just the romance aspect of the novel. i loved how this plot placed equal importance on amy’s found family and journey in finding her place in tulsa. in a town that wants her to confirm to one set of virtues, she has to figure out whether to follow the status quo or listen to her heart.

there are so many amazing characters introduced in “queerly beloved.” all of them were written beautifully and i’d do anything to meet them in real-life! i especially loved amy and how headstrong she is. i loved how her job as a professional bridesmaid was incorporated into the plot. it reminded me of katy birchall’s “the wedding season,” which was another five-star favorite of mine. from the first chapter and all the way to the epilogue, my heart was full of happiness and frustration for amy and charley. it’s not often that i’m left holding my breath and speechless. there’s not enough praise i can give to this novel and susie dumond is definitely an auto-buy for me!

Thank you Random House for the chance to read and support Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond. I want to say that I loved this book for what it was, a thoughtful and valuable examination of queer identity with Amy's journey about herself and her life/career as the main focus. I say this as a lot of reader will look at this charming cover and think rom/com and while there is romance, and I thought Charley was a great character with depth, this book is more contemporary fiction and self growth. It was a bit like Yerba Buena (not as intense as that book was in terms of topics) in that the story is the character, not the romance and witty banter some might look for.

I really enjoy character driven stories and I truly enjoyed reading Amy's story, as a reader/reviewer, an ally, and an educator I am better for books that help me listen, think, and understand diverse lives. Amy's story will stay with me because I got a lot out of being in her thoughts and experiences. As I said I also really liked Charley, she was strong and well developed and I liked her vibe. Secondary characters and plot points held my attention as well.

Go in thinking that the title means not rom com wedding vibes and more something internal about reconciling being and giving love to self, being beloved in a broader sense, and exploring what a queer identity is.

This book was not for me at this point in my life. I think that the writing is delightful and I liked the premise and I loved the cover, but it was a slow start and seemed to get more into the facing homophobia side of life than I'm interested in reading in a romance novel right now.

Thank you for the chance to review this! I won't be posting this review on Goodreads or anywhere else since I don't think it's the book or the author's fault that I didn't like it.

Absolutely loved this story. We meet Amy, a young baker who is trying to just live her best life. She loves love and is learning to be her authentic self. I love the trials and struggles she goes through while navigating a new relationship and career path.

There are a lot of aspects of this book I loved--the queer family and the gorgeous queer relationships. The pacing is off and the it should have been edited down, but I'll definitely look forward to reading this author again.