Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Gwen & Art Are Not in Love

Easy 5 stars. Love love love this book. The story is new and exciting with enough references to Arthurian legend to make it somewhat familiar. It’s queer and lovely and wonderful, full of hilarious banter and mysterious court intrigue and the most delightful cast of central characters. I laughed. I cried. I was on the edge of my seat. I want to read it again.

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booksandteatime's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

**Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review eARC**

This was real cute. I'm not the biggest historical fiction reader, but this queer Arthurian reimagining with just the most delightful cast of characters had just enough magic and fantasy vibes to keep me hooked start to finish. The whole ensemble cast is wonderfully written. The banter? Amazing. I loved them all from the jump. Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is a masterclass in how to write all the kinds of representation. (The scene where

Gwen sticks up for Bridget when her pelvic pain is dismissed by the royal physician

??? My heart is healed even if my uterus isn't.) While I agree with many of the reviews that the latter 30ish% is a major tone shift and a bit jarring, it didn't impact my enjoyment of this book, especially since I'm much more of a fantasy reader than a romcom reader. Highly recommend!

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Thanks to Macmillan for the free copy of this book.

- GWEN AND ART ARE NOT IN LOVE is everything I hoped it would be. Queerness and silliness and strong personalities and deep emotions, what else could you want?
- I loved that both Arthur and Gwen got to have unlikable characteristics but were still granted full humanity by the others.
- For all the shenanigans in this book, there is still a layer of darkness as well. The crown weighs heavy on all of them in different ways, and each character needs to figure out how they will approach the life they've been dealt.

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nefariousbee's review against another edition

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emotional relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

an easy YA read. there are two romances in this book so there was not enough space to really dive into both. it's not necessary bad, it's just a thing that has to be done if you wanted to have an average length novel.
some things bothered me, like the way race was underdeveloped (that's not fair. not developed is better) even tho it was tapped into, the internalised homophobia, the domestic abuse, it was all laid there and then it didn't have time to get into in any meaningful way and that's a shame, really.
as it is now, it's an easy, sweet YA romance book inspired by the Arthurian myths. nothing more, but also nothing less

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ezwolf's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I love all things Arthurian legend so this title grabbed my attention right away. I wasn't fully sure what to expect, but I enjoyed it immensely. This book fully embraced the potential for queer jokes which I found hilarious and relatable as well.

Gwen was incredibly relatable for me and her and Bridget's relationship was my favorite in the book, but I enjoyed Arthur point of view and his relationship with Gabriel too. Gwen and Gabriel's sibling relationship was also great, I liked how much they were there for each other.

This is the third or fourth book I've read this year that's included periods and it's such a little thing but I can't really remember reading any books growing up that normalized periods in any regard, let alone in a historical (fantasy-ish?) kind of book.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

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grets_reads's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bubbles_ishere's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

While I did really enjoy the book and the way the characters developed, I felt like it rushed at parts in order to have a lot of things happen.

I would have preferred further introspection from the characters before acting, but for people who like to read books where things "happen", this is a good choice.

The book very much feels like a romance that decides half way through that other plot events are more relevant and then decides to change genre.

Spoiler for how plot/character focused the book was during certain events:

At first it felt like the book would focus further on the interpersonal relationships of the characters. In the beginning, a lot of time was spent on the characters panicking over being in situations. The first kisses of the couples got portrayed, after which the characters had to face various challenges to come to terms with their feelings. However, when it came to actually getting into a relationship or showing the conversations needed for that to happen the author skipped forward and just told the audience that the couples were now in functioning relationships, caused by a major plot event.

Personally, I would've preferred to see how the characters got to where they are, instead of being told that the threat of death made them realise their priorities and then see them kiss.

I really liked how the characters developed and got more loveable to the reader; their actions seemed to make sense in the context of their character, and the development of their actions made sense.

The romance itself felt a bit rushed to me, but it is still enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating because it doesn't go very in-depth and fails to resolve or address certain topics.

The book mentions a few tidbits that fans of Arthurian legends will recognise, which I thought was very nice.

All in all an enjoyable read, in my opinion this book would've been 5/5 stars had it been 200 pages longer and actually explored the relationships and worldbuilding further. But then again I really like high-fantasy and worldbuilding.

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