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.

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!

The audiobook was good! Narration was well paced, everything was articulate.

This review was previously withheld in line with the Speak Up SMP boycott.

I’m a sucker for a good retelling (especially when it’s Arthurian, and ESPECIALLY when it’s queer) and boy did this one hit the spot!

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is goofy, and sweet, and incredibly adorable! Plus, it has a LADY KNIGHT!! And who doesn’t love Lady Knights???

The audiobook was so fun to listen to and I loved the dual narration. I will definitely be looking out for Lex Croucher’s next book.


Thank you MacMillan Audio & MacMillan Young Listeners for the advanced copy!

I very much enjoyed Gwen & Art Are Not in Love. I thought it was a witty take on well-known arthurian characters. The book was witty, the banter was on point, and the narrator did a fabulous job.

Imaginative take on the old legend. Really enjoyed these characters, never knew where it was going to go next.

If you are looking for a silly little queer and modern yet medieval time, this is the book for you! It was fun. Some books are truly just fun to read and this was one of them. I really look forward to checking out more by this author in the future. Thank you to NetGalley for both the audio and ebook ARCs!

Overall this was a really cute story. I found Arthur a tad annoying and frustrating, but overall the characters were likable and the romances were adorable.
I do think it was a nice YA fantasy romance, but I would have liked a little more focus on the Arthurian elements and less on the romance.

Gwen & Art Are Not In Love was a fun, queer read! I really enjoyed the characters and their respective gay awakenings, though Brigid was probably my favorite character. Strong, badass, and unapologetically herself.

I primarily listened to the audiobook and thought the narration very well matched the tone of the book and respective characters. Gwen and her slight better-than-thou attitude and Art and his…Art-ness 😅 They were both a little insufferable at the start but I grew to love them and their relationship.

Excellent narration and such a wonderful cast of characters! I loved this fresh spin on the world of Arthurian legend, and would recommend this book for lovers of the cozy fantasy, LGBTQIA romance, and stories of found family.

Historical Romance paired with a queer YA story? Yes please!

I just loved the medieval timeline of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love, and thought the story was so cute. The characters were witty and funny, and I really enjoyed this book.

WHAT TO EXPECT
-queer YA story
-medieval timeline
-themes of friendship

*many thanks to Macmillan audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review.

I am no longer wanting to accept / review or discuss any books from saint martins press. I received an arc of this book from netgally ( thank you! ) before the boycott of this particular press and after this review will no longer be acepting or publicly reviewing any more titles form them until they meet the demands of the boycott.

With that said I thought this was cute and well narrated, even if as a young adult book at times I found myself struggling to keep up with the ridiculous rom/com aspects of this novel, I loved the queer representation and I thought the cover is and always will be one of the cutest I’ve ever seen. I would definitely recommend this narrator in the future.

This isn’t the kind of book I would generally pick up. In the past couple years, I have gotten into historical fiction but I’ve never read one from the medieval time period. But make it a YA queer romance, and I’m definitely in. This was a really sweet story of fake courtship that turns into true friendship. There audio was well done. I hated Arthur at first and loved that he turned from a straight up asshole to someone with a huge heart and asshole tendencies. I feel like I saw less growth in Gwen but still enjoyed listening to her POV nonetheless. This is also a book I’d love to see a sequel to. Otherwise, I look forward to reading more by this author!

Thanks to netgalley for this ARC of this audiobook? I think because I saw a review relate this story to a knights tale the movie I imagined those characters the whole time I was listening slash reading this book and it was just so cute. I liked it a whole lot, and it was an interesting background location to a cute romance story. Was the perfect story to listen and giggly to on a sunny afternoon, will for sure read again.

I wanted this to pull me in and surprise me with some type of fun ride of a story, but unfortunately I felt underwhelmed. There's nothing wrong with it, I just didn't find it that fun or interesting.

Lex Croucher is an author who always finds a way to exceed my expectations. With each and every book, I find myself enchanted by amazing queer representation mixed into stories and legends that you wouldn't initially expect. The stories are always original and fascinating and the characters are so unique and powerfully written. -political landscape the main characters have to navigate. Art, Gwen, and Gabriel have a destiny- which is to basically re-enact the traditional roles of the Arthurian trio. Unfortunately, none of them are temperamentally suited to these roles.
From setting to dialogue, Lex Croucher has so many outstanding features in this book, it's hard to clarify exactly what the most outstanding piece of this book is. But with every character's unique voice and perspective, the plot is driven forward in such a way that the tropes don't feel too cliche or forced and the story feels effortless and true.
I really enjoyed this book both in audio and visual format. I'm sure many others will as well.

The book starts out as a typical queer, historical YA re-imagining of the King Arthur and Gwendolen where both characters are queer and the last thing they want is to be married let alone betrothed to each other. The cast is basically all queer in a world where it is not accepted. I thought the story was cute, they were becoming friends and looking out for each other. I was a bit surprised when about 2/3 in the story changes and becomes a war story straight out of game of thrones. I actually wasn't prepared for that but I found that it made the story quite exciting, and I wanted to keep reading to see how things were going to turn out.

(3.5 rounded down to a 3)

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher is a queer YA historical romance. The audiobook is narrated by Alex Singh and Sarah Ovens, and they both did a great job.

Art(hur), a descendant of King Arthur, is betrothed to Gwen(dolyn), the princess of England. But turns out, Art is gay and Gwen is at least bi, so they strike a deal to pretend to be into their engagement to hide their true selves.

This book was just okay for me, though I did laugh out loud a few times. I liked it enough to finish it, but it moved a little slow and was pretty long so it felt meandering at times. I also think it's a little bit more on the younger side of YA than I typically like to read.

The prose was good, and I've read other things by this author and will continue to read from them. The end of the book had a lot more action than the first 3/4s and if it was more like that throughout I would have been more engaged in the plot.

Aside from queer representation, Arthur's mother was Muslim and Bridget, a lady night, is Thai.

If you like YA books and you're looking for a queer spin on the mythology of King Arthur, you should give Gwen & Art Are Not In Love a try.

I really struggled to get into this book. I tried multiple times to listen to and I just couldn't get into it. The problem for me was absolutely the narrator. The story seemed so interesting I just couldn't get into the narrators voice. I have requested to borrow an ebook copy from my library and will give a review on Goodreads and other platforms after that.

It was…fine. I felt like it had too much going on and went on for too long. The anachronisms kind of annoyed me. I liked that it was a take on Arthurian legend years after the original story takes place, but I think that’s all I really enjoyed? I found Arthur really annoying. It felt too easy at the end.

This just wasn’t for me.

This was a fun take on an original tale. It really held it's own and I enjoyed it immensely. An audiobook that had me excited for the next time I could listen.