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A review by mhugie2
The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway by Ashley Schumacher
2.0
The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway has ALL of the representations! There was fat representation, handling grief, mental health, LGBQT+, and even skinny representation. For the same reasons that this is an amazing feat for the author, it also acts as content warnings. I can’t praise Ashley Shumacher enough for how she wrote this book. It was so emotional and sucked you in. I think that all teenagers and YA should read this book because there is something that they all can relate to.
Now you may have noticed that my rating seems rather low for me singing the author and book so much flattery, this comes down to my personal tastes more than anything. I loved Arthur and thought him and the side characters were the stars of the book. That being said, I did not like Madeline/Gwen at all. For someone that constantly said she wanted to change the world by making it nicer, she was not a nice person. I would go so far as saying that she was mean. Being in her head for the whole book was really difficult, she is so mentally unhealthy and just not likable. For me, I would have benefited from a second POV so that I could see her through others eyes. I honestly feel like I missed something by only having her POV, because Madeline was not nice and not someone that I can imagine anyone would want to be around.
While there were so many things that are positives, readers should really pay attention to all content warnings when going into this book. There is so much great representation and the author is amazingly talented. Despite not liking this book because of the MC, I will definitely be reading more Ashley Shumacher in the future and think that this book is worth the read for others.
Now you may have noticed that my rating seems rather low for me singing the author and book so much flattery, this comes down to my personal tastes more than anything. I loved Arthur and thought him and the side characters were the stars of the book. That being said, I did not like Madeline/Gwen at all. For someone that constantly said she wanted to change the world by making it nicer, she was not a nice person. I would go so far as saying that she was mean. Being in her head for the whole book was really difficult, she is so mentally unhealthy and just not likable. For me, I would have benefited from a second POV so that I could see her through others eyes. I honestly feel like I missed something by only having her POV, because Madeline was not nice and not someone that I can imagine anyone would want to be around.
While there were so many things that are positives, readers should really pay attention to all content warnings when going into this book. There is so much great representation and the author is amazingly talented. Despite not liking this book because of the MC, I will definitely be reading more Ashley Shumacher in the future and think that this book is worth the read for others.