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.

This was actually way funnier than I thought it would be but overall it took me so long to go through because of the lack of action. Also, I didn’t really like the characters and couldn’t identify to them which made this reading even more painful. I feel like the more you get into the book the more you start to like it but it took too long for me it was already a lost cause. I’m so sad though because it’s not bad at all it’s just me and my attention span.

I absolutely adored Gwen and Art Are Not in Love. It took me a little bit to get to know the characters but once I did I fell in love with them all. And I didn’t only love the romantic relationships but the friendships as well. I think my favorite duo in the book was Arthur and Sidney. Their friendship was the best with the laughter and banter between them.

This was a fun story about finding and being true to yourself. It doesn’t matter what time period you’re in, you love who you love.

I really enjoyed the narrators in the audiobook. They did a fantastic job of bringing the story to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

The narrators are the biggest stars of this audiobook. It was fun and fast paced. It isn't perfect by any stretch, but it wasn't trying to be. It was just what it was and that is enough. Fans of the Mackenzi Lee will have a lot to like here. The swapping narrators was a good touch and the end was just right. We didn't need an epilogue. Lots of books like this would have that and it would ruin a lot of the work.

What an absolute delight! Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is a triumph of queer historical fiction, romantic comedy, and just plain fun. I had a blast with Arthur and Gwen, both hilarious in their own right, and loved this tale of queer enemies to found family. A refreshing romp that I couldn't put down!

I found this story unexpectedly lovable and addicting. I was happily surprised by the humor and how well the story flowed. Having read a lot of lgbtq+ romances in the past few years Gwen & Art Art Not in Love stands out in the way that it entertains. I would love to see this made into a show or a movie.

I LOVE LEX CROUCHER!!!!! Okay, this book is NOT an Arthurian retelling. It is set in the "future" of Arthurian legend where this book's Arthur is a descendent of The King Arthur. Anyways, he is betrothed to Gwen. They hate each other. No this is not rivals to lovers. Arthur loves kissing boys, Gwen loves swooning over a certain female knight. Its great its wonderful, they discover the truth of King Arthur's relationships with his knights and have to deal with a rebellion! Its got action, its got the love, and Lex Croucher easily became a favorite, instant buy author of mine! I highly recommend their books you wont regret it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this ALC! ♥

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is funny, witty, delightful, touching, and just the right amount of irreverently ahistorical to make for an exciting romp of the book. Alex Singh was quite good as a narrator. I enjoyed his cadence and thought it brought Arthur to life in the moments when he was being sassy particularly well. However, there were several lines where characters were supposed to be morose and still came across VERY chipper. That said, Sarah Ovens was excellent. I thought she was pitch-perfect and particularly liked scenes where Gwen and Bridget talked. Overall, very enjoyable.

The first half of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love was a bit slow for me. I'm not a historical fiction person and I found a lot of the set up a bit slow. I almost gave up on it but I'm SO SO SO glad I pushed through. If the first 1/3-1/2 was a bit slow, the rest of the book was absolutely incredible. I loved how the action picked up, I loved the development of the characters, and I loved the twists and turns. I could not stop reading for the second half of the book. I absolutely adored the main characters, particularly Arthur and Sidney, and I love how they tried to forge their own paths. I absolutely recommend this for classroom, school, and public libraries. I think a wide variety of people would adore this book as well from those who like retellings to King Arthur and historical fiction fans to those who like romance to those who like action and adventure. Definitely recommend!

"to be truly brave, first you must be afraid—and to be afraid, you must have something you cannot bear to lose."

💖💫💖

Thank you NetGalley for granting me access to a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

it took me three long months to finally finish this book. the amount of times i dnf and then picked back was insane. i loooooved the idea of this book, but lost interest so fast.