A book that had me grinning ear-to-ear almost the whole way through. I love Susie's voice and the deft way she crafts a compelling narrative. I was rooting for Amy the whole way!

If you couldn’t tell from the title, this romance is delightfully queer! A great story on coming out and coming into your true self while also finding love!

Absolutely charming and romantic! I loved the premise of this novel as well as the romance. The queer representation was done so well and it all felt very heartfelt.

A really fun yet thoughtful read. I think definitely something outside my usual comfort zone but glad I read!

I struggled a lot with this book. The idea was interesting, but it got a bit cliche at times, and the story felt slow. The romance seemed like an afterthought too. There wasn’t much chemistry between the characters, and they didn’t spend much time together. I did enjoy some scenes, but overall it just didn’t hit the spot for me.

I found this rather forgettable.

I enjoyed parts but I think ultimately it was more women’s fiction than romance and the characters were a bit stale and didn’t have much growth.

Queerly Beloved was ok. I think I was expecting something different, so that let to my disappointment. I was really wanting the romance, but it was more the story of living in the closet and coming out.

I really liked this book, however, I felt that it veered more into women’s fiction territory than a true romance novel. The book mostly deals with the growth and emotional journey of the protagonist, Amy, as she reckons with being gay in Oklahoma in the time period immediately leading up to marriage marriage equality while embarking upon a new job as a professional bridesmaid. Ultimately, this book was less about Amy‘s romantic journey and more about her coming to terms with her own feelings on romance and marriage, as well as how to be a good community member.

A moving and witty romance book about finding yourself as a queer person after having grown up in a restrictive religious community

This book was an interesting ride. While I love an LGBT Romance especially one that includes food and a crazy journey, the ending unfortunately didn’t give me that satisfying feeling once I was done.

Will always love an amazing queer romance. The character development was on point, Biggest hit for me was focusing on the rights surround the LGBTQIA+ community

I did like the romance in this book, and I loved how everything was wrapped up in the end and everything worked out, but it was a wild ride.

Amy was very relatable. Amy and Charley...so cute.

Some solid representation in here, too.

"Queerly Beloved" is a let down of a queer adult romance and one you should likely skip. This book had all the promise in the world with a great foundation and premise, but the writing falls flat with poor execution and bad characters. It took a lot in me not to DNF this one.

I was excited for this book because I am on the hunt for a sapphic book that makes me feel warm comforting rom-com feelings like many Achillean books have. This book was so stereotypically gay that it felt almost homophobic. There are two sets of gay men that are literally the exact same, one set is just twenty years older, but they both are reduced to “my gay best friend and his husband”. The love interest is basically “smart butch lesbian” and that’s the extent of her personality and character growth. The main character is self-centered and hypocritical for making her entire life about weddings while hating on straight weddings the entire book.

This book is advertised as romance when it barely had any romance except for the mention of weddings happening in the background. It’s also hard to be a romance book when your love interest is hardly ever around. This isn’t a story about falling in love. The plot lacked purpose and direction.

I wanted to love this book but I couldn’t relate to the characters honestly.1/5 stars because the characters fell short and the plot was lacking for me.

Can’t wait to read this book with my class on reading the romance to analyze the recent turn toward queer romance in the genre.

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond is a romance with a strong, underlying message of acceptance. When a queer baker is fired from her job at a Christian bakery, she has to figure out another job for herself. So she becomes a substitute bridesmaid, and she learns a lot of lessons about herself and other people. I really appreciated the underlying message of acceptance and the way this author spoke on Christians and their approach towards the LGBTQIA+ community. It was honest and thoughtful. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I liked this story, but don't feel as though it delivered on what the summary had me expecting. The love story was cute, and well developed, and I'm an absolute sucker for anything with a found family, like Amy has at the bar. But the description left me excited to read a bridesmaid-for-hire romance, and that part of the plotline seemed to fall a little flat. I'd have liked to see more stories about wedding misadventures, maybe even something invovling Charley, but as it is, I enjoyed what there was enough to read the whole thing.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer: I read this novel in February 2023 and am getting around to the review now in June 2023. As you would understand from the rest of this review, I can't recall specifics of this novel.

I love the cover and had relatively high hopes for this novel but something about the couple I couldn't connect with. I used the E-ARC and a Libby loan audiobook to get through this novel. Neither format kept me engaged enough and by the time the third act rolled around, I found myself not rooting for the couple's happily ever after.

While I appreciate the timeline effort the author put into the novel, I found this novel not to be a memorable romcom for me and unfortunately not one I ever plan to reread.

Let me start off by saying the narrator for the audiobook is absolutely fantastic, and I highly recommend listening!

This book was a lot of fun, with unique quirky characters that I adore to no end, and fun new business idea that seems more trouble than it's worth. But definitely entertaining!

But this book also opened up a lot of serious topics. Mainly concerning marriage equality for LGBTQIA+ people and maintaining a professional work-life for queer people. I'm not sure how to describe the emotions it made me feel. I was happy and sad and all over the place every time pretty much anything happened that had Amy profess her queerness, which was nerve-wracking that it came up so many times. But that's not just the book, that's being queer. Coming out is never just a one time thing, and this book deeply gets into that.

All in all, I love it. It was brilliant. I will say that I cared more about the politics addressed and the friendships in the book than the actual relationship of the MC.