Reviews with content warning for War - Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

Reviews tagging 'War'

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

274 reviews

vaguely_pink's review against another edition

4.0

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

**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!

Content Warnings

aelis_'s review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional funny hopeful

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

efsimpkin's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous emotional funny 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

I haven’t yet checked other reviews but my main flaw with this book was that it felt like it wanted to be two different books. On one hand you’ve got two lovely romances (I so wished we had seen more of Art and Gabe, I feel like Bridget and Gwen got a lot more screen time) that aren’t given enough room to breathe. On the other hand you’ve got a fantasy-typical political intrigue that also doesn’t really make much sense until it suddenly does, catastrophically changing the tone of what had been a cute and hilarious book to something with teeth.

I loved the glance of the epilogue we had and wish that would become a sequel, just to see how all the characters continue after the events of the book, but idk I feel like the marketing and cute cover and blurb completely missold me on this

Content Warnings

ana_avidreader's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

(full review pending because of the boycott. publishers plz fix ur shit. do better)

-gay. good. dense. first 100 pages hard to get through. i feel like this is one of the books where the sequel HAS to be better cus this entire story was a big set up. unnecessary gory detailed injuries.

Content Warnings

nefariousbee's review against another edition

3.75

emotional relaxing fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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

Content Warnings

ezwolf's review against another edition

5.0

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: Complicated

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!

Content Warnings

sammy_nor's review against another edition

4.5

emotional funny

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Content Warnings

shelbbooks's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective 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

Delightful read. Loved the characters and the moments where their flaws and personalities connected with my own experiences.

Content Warnings

grets_reads's review against another edition

5.0

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

Content Warnings

shaipanda's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional 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

I absolutely loved this and desperately need to read the other books in Lex Croucher's backlist. The characters and story were incredibly well crafted, the character development was really well done and I felt the chemistry between the characters. As I go into more in the spoiler section, the only issue I had with this book was that there were some plot threads that didn't seem to really come to fruition which was a bit frustrating but overall this was an amazing read and definitely still a 5 star read for me :)

The only issue I had with this book is that there were a few details that were mentioned (especially regarding Merlin and Morgana which were never explained or really brought into the story. With the way they were being written about, I thought they were going to end up being shapeshifters or some significant part of the story but then that never really came to fruition.

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