Member Reviews
What a fun love story. I fear I'm just not a fan of YA titles anymore. I predicted the twists and turns early on in the story. And the lingo/language was a tad bit too modern for me.
But the pairings were super cute, the characters were lovable. It was very, very funny! And I absolutely love that all the characters were queer!
Overall, a good story. I just had a hard time really enjoying it. But I do recommend it to anyone who loves YA!
I am obsessed with this book. The author knows I am obsessed with this book. I am MELTED for Gwen and Art, and I love the wild turn the book takes at the end into an action novel. All points all the way down, and I cannot wait to read Croucher's next.
SO F**** HOT I AM OBSSESED WITH THIS BOOK BECAUSE HELLO ??? im obssesed... they are just bvrefnvkrwnf love them
What a lovely romp with 4 characters I rooted for! I enjoyed the humor, the storyline, and the writing style.
A Queer retelling of King Arthur? Sign me up!
I’ve read some of Alex crouches other work and really enjoyed it so I was very excited to receive a copy of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love and it certainly lived up to the hype!
If you are looking for a fun retelling of the classic tale or just a great queer read, this is definitely worth picking up!
It’s fun, romantic, & brave!
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is a novel that delves into themes of friendship, love, and finding yourself that can be enjoyed by anyone but especially young folks who are dealing with these topics in their own life.
This was so beautifully written. It had sparkly giddy moments of sweetness. The characters where will written and the world building was amazing. It will be one of my favorite for years to come.
I love period pieces and regency novels. This book was right up my alley and I connected with it early on. The last 30-40% of the book did take me off guard but I think it ended nicely
SO MUCH FUN! Hijinks galore. While I wouldn't recommend to historical fiction readers, I would recommend to any queer romance readers.
I enjoyed this one - it was cute and there were so many shenanigans! I did feel like the pacing for this one was rather slow, sometimes I caught myself drifting but towards the end it ramps up and is full of action, which makes for quite the contrast with the beginning of the book. This is especially true when it comes to the mysteries of what was going around the castle, I just feel that could've been more present throughout the book instead of mainly the end. Either way, this was a fun read and I rather liked Gwen and Arthur teaming up so they could both get their happy ever afters! The friendships stuck out for me in this one!
I went back and forth between the ebook and audiobook for this one - the narration of the audiobook was enjoyable and I ended up finished the book via audio.
Thank you to St-Martin's Press, MacMillan Audio and Netgalley for the ARC/ALC. All opinions are my own.
I wasn't really in the mood for regency romance when I started this but I still had a lot of fun! Loved the King Arthur lore and of course the queer relationships and the siblings relationships! I think this was hyped a lil more on booksta so I had a lot of expectations so it didn't hit as much for me but without thinking of that, I loved it!
I have to say that the pacing in this novel built up an extreme and well rounded ending and I quite enjoyed that. Took a tension filled romance and amped it up.
Where this fails for me is the miscommunication with Arthur. Anytime I see miscommunication in a book, so run in the opposite direction.
This also felt a lot pop culture-y than it should have been.
It is hard to make me care about two couples equally in a book. This book didn't do it. Firstly, because Gwen and Arthur were deeply unlikeable at the beginning of the book. Gwen eventually won me over, but I never did grow to appreciate Arthur. The pacing of the POVs led the book to feel disjointed, and it seems clear to me which character Croucher thinks is the most interesting. Ultimately, this is a skip for me.
I love retellings, so it was an easy request for Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher but this one did not catch me.
This was such a delightful Arthurian story! I love when the Arthurian Legend is retold and is very queer! This was fantastic and I have no words to accurately describe how much I liked this!
I just could not get into this one - but I think it was me and not the story. I tried multiple times to pick this up and just couldn't do it. Finally, I threw on the audiobook during a car trip and powered through...but you shouldn't have to power through books when you are genuinely enjoying them.
Unfortunately, for me, I think I am just not a historical romance girly - I struggle with regency and I struggled with medieval. I did enjoy the twist on the usual Arthurian legend we all know and love - but it also felt like A LOT was going on, on top of two separate romances.
Ultimately, I think parts of the book simply didn't work for me - but I know there is a huge audience for this book who will probably love it!
I really really wanted to like this book more than I did! It was a highly anticipated read of mine, and it just didn't deliver the way I wanted it to. I just didn't vibe with it the way I thought I would. This isn't to say it was a bad book, it was enjoyable! It just wasn't quite what I was expecting. I thought the humor was really good, and the disagreements between the main characters were pretty funny.
I also thought that the story itself moved kinda slow until the very end, and then there was a lot of stuff going on. There was tension building up to the conflict at the end the entire time, but it didn't really feel like it was the main focus, so when it did finally come up at the end I just... didn't care that much about it. I just wanted to read about the characters being silly and friends with each other. I will say, I found the friendship between Gwen and Art much more enjoyable to read than either of the romantic relationships that they pursued.
Also Gwen was an annoying main characterrrrrr. I liked Arthur, he was funny (most of the time), but I just didn't really like Gwen about 70% of the time. She had her good moments, but basically anytime her love interest was involved or she had to spend any time performing court duties I was annoyed.
I did find myself enjoying most of the book, but nothing really stood out as being amazing so this review unfortunately might read more negative than I'm intending since all I really have to say about the rest of it is that it's good... I love a good LGBTQ+ historical fiction, but I just don't think this book was meant for me and that's ok. I would recommend this to people looking for books of that genre! And I would like to try another book by Lex Croucher to see if I might vibe better with a different title by them.
3 stars
This book was wonderful. It's a really creative *not* retelling of the King Arthur legend. I loved seeing queer characters in this setting.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this arc!
I am dnfing this book. I do not think there is anything wrong with this book. I really love this cover. It is almost been a year and I have not tried to pick up this book in a while. Maybe I will return to this book.
This was a reading that captivated me, the characters are incredible, especially Art who had a great evolution. Friendship is a very important point for the development of the story and the characters.
Arthur and Gwen, were some of the sweetest, relatable characters I’ve experienced. And don’t even get me started on Sidney or Bridget! I immediately fell in love with each and every one of these characters, scars, flaws and all. The ridiculous situations and conversations they kept falling into, were hilarious and heartwarming at the same time. Lex Croucher has such talent for writing some of the most witty banter and cheeky humor! (My face actually hurt from smiling and laughing so much.)