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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
tense
medium-paced
Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
This is my second Lex Croucher book--the first being 2023's Gwen and Art are Not in Love--and, on the whole, I enjoyed this more than its predecessor. It contains many of the things that I thought made Gwen and Art wonderful, including goofy, tongue-in-cheek, The Princess Bride-esque dialogue (without ever veering into out-and-out silliness) and historical queer romance. Because this book is only telling one love story as opposed to two, I felt like the plot had a lot more room to breathe and the relationship more room to develop, and it's clear that Croucher was having so much fun playing with the Robin Hood story, taking our heroes on adventure after adventure at a steady pace that made this a fairly quick read. I also appreciated that the world Croucher has built is queernormative and contains diversity among its cast of secondary characters, with no over-explaining of why there are non-white people in ye olde England (as if diversity hasn't always existed). If I have a single quibble with this fun, lighthearted read, it's that the conflict felt resolved a little too quickly, and (without getting into spoilers) a series of betrayals near the end of the book left me wondering who, exactly, I was supposed to be mad at. I also had a hard time at times with the main relationship, but that could be a matter of personal preference; this book markets itself as leaning into the "grumpy/sunshine" relationship trope, and it certainly does that well (I love Clem!), but sometimes Mariel's grumpiness went to such an extreme that I wondered what a kind, positive person like Clem even saw in her, apart from that she was hot. But overall, very enjoyable and very satisfying; I hope Croucher has some more queer historical romances up their sleeve!
This is my second Lex Croucher book--the first being 2023's Gwen and Art are Not in Love--and, on the whole, I enjoyed this more than its predecessor. It contains many of the things that I thought made Gwen and Art wonderful, including goofy, tongue-in-cheek, The Princess Bride-esque dialogue (without ever veering into out-and-out silliness) and historical queer romance. Because this book is only telling one love story as opposed to two, I felt like the plot had a lot more room to breathe and the relationship more room to develop, and it's clear that Croucher was having so much fun playing with the Robin Hood story, taking our heroes on adventure after adventure at a steady pace that made this a fairly quick read. I also appreciated that the world Croucher has built is queernormative and contains diversity among its cast of secondary characters, with no over-explaining of why there are non-white people in ye olde England (as if diversity hasn't always existed). If I have a single quibble with this fun, lighthearted read, it's that the conflict felt resolved a little too quickly, and (without getting into spoilers) a series of betrayals near the end of the book left me wondering who, exactly, I was supposed to be mad at. I also had a hard time at times with the main relationship, but that could be a matter of personal preference; this book markets itself as leaning into the "grumpy/sunshine" relationship trope, and it certainly does that well (I love Clem!), but sometimes Mariel's grumpiness went to such an extreme that I wondered what a kind, positive person like Clem even saw in her, apart from that she was hot. But overall, very enjoyable and very satisfying; I hope Croucher has some more queer historical romances up their sleeve!
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
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
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The pacing was not for me.
honestly the difference in quality between lex’s last book and this one is astounding. i didn’t love the last one, finding it difficult to follow and the romances just okay, but omg did this book totally take me aback. i came into it skeptically, so this had to be really good to get my attention and it was!!! the characters- every one of them, are so deep, so interesting, they defy your expectations and truly make you love them. the writing is so luxuriously descriptive, i truly felt like lex was guiding me hand in hand through each scene. the romance felt REALISTIC (like omg how many sapphic books have i read where they’re in love after two days), and was really sweet, showing flaws in both characters that they overcame at a reasonable time and for understandable reasons. i’m just really caught on the realism of the relationships in this book, truly spectacularly done and rare to find in the romance genre. the story is also very interesting, the plot got slightly muddled at the end, but that tends to happen in fantasy books during the final battle so i’m okay with that. the diversity was amazing, obviously obsessed with the sapphic representation, but the “found family” also had a non binary person, a gay relationship, and overall was very refreshing as the gayness was not a problem- i love a good “homophobia has never existed” alternate universe type beat. truly recommend!!! this book is a testament to how an author can grow- i have been converted to a fan and will be waiting for her next book!
adventurous
funny
slow-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:
Complicated
Honestly, kind of overwritten. Funny and cute, but there's just too many characters and not enough happening, and I just. Got bored. Which is a real shame. I started skimming the last 40 pages, and I'm just not convinced. Clem is very adorable, but otherwise I'm just not sure this was the book I really wanted. Too much enemies to lovers, not enough lovers, and while the comedy was there, I still think the page count should have been slashed in half and focused less on the military meandering.