A review by buffyreads
Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

2.0

Characters:
Gwen is the princess of Camelot. She is introverted and wants nothing more than to be left alone and dream about female knight Bridget Leclair. She's very stubborn, cowardly, and anxious. I really liked her character. Art is the son of the lord Maidvale and Gwen's fiancé since birth. He's a prat and quite unlikable. Even for a teenage boy character I found him to be very immature and mean. Even when we as the audience are supposed to feel for him I failed to connect. He's very judgmental, projects a lot onto others, and can do so because he doesn't have the same responsibilities as the other two. Gabriel is Gwen's brother and heir to the throne. I loved how earnest he is about being a good king for all of his people as he believes King Arthur was even though the way he goes about it is not good.


Plot:
Since her birth, Gwen has been betrothed to Art and since her birth they held a childish dislike of each other. As their marriage looms Arthur is forced is spend the summer at court, Gwen sees him kiss a man. This leads to them brokering a deal of peace because Art figures out her crush on Bridget. I didn't like the blackmailing aspect. It's a personal pet peeve of mine. I also feel like the reason Arthur hated Gwen as much as it did needed to be bigger. She did nothing to him, it was all his own personal issues. The crux of my issue with this book is the setting. Since it was an infusion of being modern but also medieval it was hard to tell what the stakes were. The last 25% was a real shift that would have been more interesting if I had liked the characters more and cared about the world more.


Rating: I give this book a 2/5