Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this Advanced Reader’s Copy of The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley due to be published May 21, 2024.
Patrick O’Hara is closing in on fifty, newly single, and doing well professionally. When his brother Greg gets remarried in Italy, he needs “Guncle” Patrick to watch the kids while on his honeymoon. Maisie and Grant, the children, are less than thrilled.
Will Patrick be able to come out of this alive while dealing with a “cold feet” groom, a flirty sister, and two moody teenagers? Will he be able to teach them about love and find his own?
It’s been a while since I read The Guncle but I remember I thoroughly enjoyed it so I assumed this would be more of the same – and it did not disappoint!
Patrick teaches Maisie and Grant how to love through learning their love languages while quoting old movie line and “oldie” lyrics – his ways are completely charming.
I found myself smiling throughout most of the book and laughing out loud at so much of it. Since I have a gay son, I can totally get into Patrick’s character and relate to a lot of it. The characters were wonderful – especially the “launt” – lesbian aunt – who sparred with Patrick and could match him one-for-one with her jabs.
It was a fabulous book – I would give it five stars for humor, family dynamics, and warmth!

.#NetGalley #StevenRowley #PenguinGroupPutnam #TheGuncleAbroad

Brilliant, per usual. I really love Steven Rowley's ability to integrate humor into tender and emotional stories. Patrick is everyone's fave Guncle and feels like a prime example of someone trying to reparent themselves through their own trauma by shepherding their fave kiddo through similar challenges. Loved the new characters and how thoughtfully they were developed and written. Kids in the tween/teen ages are difficult to represent well but Rowley captured them really effectively, they maintained their personalities and characteristics from the Guncle in their older forms.

My review is posted on Instagram, IG Stories and Goodreads. I will post again on/near pub day.

4.5 stars

This book is a wonderful continuation of the stories of the characters I loved in the first book. The trio is back to travel across Europe in preparation for the kids’ dad’s wedding. This is a story about grief, life and love after loss, and growing up.
Much like the first, this book had so much heart and was so full of emotion. I loved watching the journey these characters went on, both literally and emotionally, and think this was the ending they all deserved.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for the ARC

“The Guncle” stole our hearts, and now it just gets better! Full of humor and heart. I’d recommend this book to anyone! I dare you not to smile.

It's so rare that a sequel lives up to the original, but this was just as poignant and fun as its predecessor. This family and their adorable dynamic is everything.

With his trademark humor and heart, Steven Rowley has done the near impossible- The Guncle Abroad is a PERFECT sequel! Although we find the characters we know and love older, they are not without some growing up to do…. Including GUP. We may have moved from Guncle Rules to Guncle love languages, but both the reader, and the characters, leave the journey of this book better for having learned them. I laughed so hard I cried, and then I cried so hard I had to laugh. Five HUGE stars for The Guncle Abroad! Thank you to @NetGalley and G.P. Putnam for my gifted ARC.

This series is such a fun one. I'm not a huge mystery lover or a big romance person, but these books are a great diversion and fun to read. I especially enjoy Patrick's character and the history of his relationship with Sara and how he has evolved.

After reading The Guncle, I was super excited and surprised that I received an advanced reader copy for NetGalley. I missed sarcastic and witty Patrick and Maisie. But Grant is still my favorite. Maisie is 14 and Grant is 11. After learning that their dad is remarrying and after an especially difficult breakup, the trio decides to take a monthlong vacation across Europe. Patrick decides to teach them all about love. Along the way, Patrick is forced to compete with the future Launt (lesbian aunt) in order to be his niece/nephew’s favorite again.

The book dragged unfortunately but I loved the last 30% of book. This was a good sequel and I will continue to read the authors other books.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book. I enjoyed this book so much. It was so nice to read about the characters yet again.

Thank you to NetGallery for the advance ecopy of this book. GAP (Gay Uncle Patrick) is back, and trying to ease the transition of his favorite niece and nephew to a new stepmother. Along the way, Patrick must face his own reluctance for intimacy in the wake of his partner's death several years ago. The book is filled with empathy and humor, and the laughs sometimes lead to tears. I love this family, and I hope the author continues their story in future books.

I would love to be unique in my review of this lovely, whacky, hilarious, heartwarming book, but I am going to have to stick with some tried and true statements. I adored this dadgum book. All the heart-eye emojis! And that's saying something because I loved its predecessor, The Guncle (it was one of my top reads in 2022). And the number of times I laughed out loud, by myself, like a lunatic was only exceeded by the number of times I wept happy and sad tears. This story does everything I want a story to do; make me feel all the things. In short, everyone should read it. Everyone. It is a stunning work of art.

Patrick, aka GUP aka GayUncle Patrick aka Guncle, is back to take care of Maisie and Grant when, to their horror, their dad is engaged to be married. Patrick takes the kids for a few weeks before the wedding to try to convince them how important love is and why they should allow their father to have that again, while the kids are set to convince him that he needs to help them call the wedding off. Patrick sets about teaching the now early teen and preteen kids the Guncle Love Languages. Full of the same wit and humor as before, still with a touch of grief, The Guncle Abroad brings back our favorite trio for more life lessons.

The magic, for me, is Patrick's relationship and banter with Maisie and Grant. I really enjoyed the first 2/3rds, as it's just the three of them, but I struggled with the final third, the conflict/climax, and the dialogue between adults. I found myself cringing from secondhand embarrassment from how characters were handling themselves. And while I liked the first two thirds the most, the travelling distracted Patrick from listening and connecting with his niece and nephew. I felt disconnected from the kids as a reader, since the story was juggling the kids with its travelogue.

I think Rowley does a decent job of portraying the tension between gay men and women, and Patrick certainly doesn't come across as an angel in that regard - which is realistic.

It doesn't have the magic of the first book but it's decent enough to read to see what happens after the first book.

I loved "The Guncle" so was really excited to see a sequel!

I loved getting to revisit the character of Patrick O'Hara -- the same biting humor and clever, dry wit, but deep underlying love for his nephew & niece were great to read again. I also enjoyed that we got more of the unique Patrick personality that I loved from the first book, but this time with his niece & nephew moving on to a new chapter of their lives -- older, navigating their own growth and grief as they grow up and are faced with the challenge of a new step-mother.

The European setting was fun, and I enjoyed some of their adventures as they frolicked through Europe (particularly the Sound of Music episode) -- but overall this book felt thinner than the last -- the central core of Patrick & the kids was there, but it felt like there was a fair bit of padding to get to a novel length -- sometimes felt like I was reading a travel guide instead of a story. The side-plots & characters kinda worked - they were a bit hit or miss.... (like the rivalry/friendship with Palmina...)

I wanted a bit more communication & plot and background and to & fro on the Patrick & Emory front -- this was sidelined almost too much & would have made it more enjoyable to have this as a side plot throughout as they try to work things out -- this seemed to just happen rather suddenly (and somewhat predictably) near the end... But maybe that's the romance-reader in me wanting that to be more of the story; the relationship with Grant & Maisie took the fore here - and there were some particularly beautiful sentiments about grief and loss, and how that changes but doesn't go away over time (e.g. "You're the last survivors of a lost civilization that was your nuclear family.... they're afraid of their civilization crumbling further under the weight of advancement. They're both furious little archaeologists trying to unearth it with those teeny brushes as fast as the present is busy bburying it under more sand." )

Overalll, an enjoyable sequel, with some hilarity and some poignant moments - but feels more like enough story/content for a novella, suffers a little for trying to stretch to a full-on novel.

Our Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP) is back to help Maisie and Grant navigate another big life change. However, Patrick seems sassier and honestly annoying this time. The way he talks is so pretentious and rude and instead of thinking it’s funny this time, it became old for me rather quickly. I will say I was glad Clara and Palmina checked him towards the middle of the book. The beginning jumped in too quickly and was confusing. I felt like until chapter 4 I was regretting not rereading the first book bc I felt lost. The time between travels felt disjointed and stiff. I didn’t feel like the transition was smooth enough to segue into a new country. I also felt like the whole European tour was a bit odd in general. Like I see how it tried to be rationalized with their mom always wanting to have gone to Austria and stuff but it felt like a weird lengthy way to get more content but not get to the plot? Maybe I’m reading too far into it or maybe just not connecting enough. The ending truly redeemed it for me though. I felt like this time Patrick had the most character growth. I loved the ending and I loved the scenes in Italy. Overall a great sequel.

Oh, how I love the Guncle! His pithy lessons on life. His wit. His sensitivities and sensibilities. His adoration of Maisie and Grant….

Rowley’s The Guncle Abroad arguably is a novel in need of pruning. In my humble opinion, portions are meandering, excessive and absurd. But in that the construct of the story mirrors GUP’s own personality, those factors did not diminish my enjoyment of this tale. And extra points to Rowley for the meaningful author’s note.

Reading The Guncle prior to embarking on this journey with Patrick is highly recommended.

Three and a half stars rounded up for making me laugh and for the important social commentary.

Many thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for a complementary ARC. Opinions are my own.

I loved "The Guncle" and I really liked this sequel - just not as much as the first one. Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP) is reunited with his niece and nephew while they are traveling through Europe to meet up with their dad and his new fiancee in Italy. Where GUP came across as outrageous, funny and also sweet and vulnerable in the first book, he at times were annoying, whining and over the top in this one. His self-pity over turning 50 was a bit too much, and his feud with the new launt (lesbian aunt) did not really sit well with me either.
That being said it was still a very good read - hence the four stars.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this ARC.

The Guncle is back! The love I have for this family Is unlike any other book. Reading this book brought so much joy and happiness to me. I will be recommending The Guncle Abroad to my book club as soon as it is published.

This sequel has the same charm and humor as the first book. I'll admit that I didn't like this story as much as the original, but it was still entertaining and it was really nice to revisit these characters to see how they've grown.

The Guncle Abroad is another fantastic Steven Rowley adventure with everyone's favorite GUP, or Gay Uncle Patrick. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading the first book in this series, The Guncle, start there, and buy an extra copy for a friend because it will quickly become a favorite book. Set five years after the last book, and after the recent engagement of Maisie and Grant's father Greg, Patrick and the kids set off on a European adventure with the ultimate destination of Italy for their father's wedding. Along the way they share many love lessons, life lessons, and as usual it's not only the children that are learning. This book is filled with humor, heart, and as Steven Rowley fans may expect, so many beautiful reminders to be open to living a beautiful life. The Guncle is easily one of my favorite books I read last year, and I loved The Guncle Abroad just as much. Do yourself a favor and preorder this one before it comes out in May and while you are waiting, read The Guncle! Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this advanced copy, all opinions are my own.