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A review by lindentea
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher
funny
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
3.25
This was cute, but ultimately a LITTLE bit disappointing since I expected it to be a slam-dunk for me. First of all the vagueness about the exact time period kinda distracted me to the point where, while I was listening, I'd open my notes app and write down things that existed to try to pinpoint a century -- which I'm sure doesn't matter to literally anyone else but when you say "a fun medieval romp" I'm gonna want to know if you mean early medieval or high medieval or late medieval or so on? Ultimately what I though Croucher did with the time period WAS fun and smart (setting it around when Le Morte d'Arthur would have been published and having "canon Arthurian times" be I think the 6th century) but like would it not have been fun to throw in a "come on dad it's the 15th century" somewhere? Furthermore while I was fully very ready to suspend my disbelief because i DID expect this to be fun and anachronistic, it wasn't fun and anachronistic ENOUGH, and the things it took from stuff that might happen in the 21st century were like... things that the average reader might just take for granted about the Middle Ages, not something that's like Glaringly Obviously Anachronistic For Fun.
For example theArthur-Lancelot letters. And like just to be extremely clear the problem was NOT that they were gay af, in fact I think it's really clever that they were and that their beard was so effective that, with some suppression of history and a dose of heteronormativity, everyone just kinda bought that of COURSE the royal Lancelot would be in love with would be Guinevere. That part was great!! But my problem is that there is NO way These royal mfs would be learning "COMMON BRITTONIC" AND calling it that. If there were extensive written records I think probably there would have been a different name, and again if there were extensive or even few written records I think it would be a thing that you'd have to teach yourself or learn from like a very specialized source, not something commonly taught to nobles like latin might have been at this point in time, and this is even ASSUMING that Arthur or Lancelot would be literate enough to write each other gay ass love letters because many people rullers included just were not. While we're on the topic I also thought it was a cop-out to end the book before Gabriel gives his speech legalizing gay marriage , and in general thought the big serious war where all the characters were put in actual genuine bodily danger and Gwen and Gabriel's dad DIED just really didn't fit the tone of the story.
I could complain about a lot more tbh like how if we're doing all this with Arthurian legend shouldn't there be some Matter of France stuff going around also, which is a lot more into the Lady Knight concept so if anything the conflict with Bridget shouldn't have been that she's a girl who's a knight but rather that "that only exists in stories" or something like that, or that the whole Cultist thing doesn't make sense because Belief in Magic and Catholicism aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, or that (and I'm saying this being Turkish and focusing in so many of my college classes on Middle Eastern & Muslim representation in medieval lit right so I should be happy about this) Arthur's being half-Persian felt like suuuch hollow representation since his mom, who he gets that identity from, died giving birth to him and he seemingly does not know or care to know ANYTHING about that side of him, has no complex feelings about not having access to that side of his heritage, etc which was weird since Bridget's being Thai didn't feel that way (to ME, maybe a Thai or generally Southeast Asian reader will feel differently) since it actually affected parts of her character and she still had a connection to her culture through her LIVING family members even though it was relegated to like one or two convos. If you're gonna get me hyped up for your MALE MAIN CHARACTER (who is actually the most likeable person in the story btw, Arthur ily) being half-Middle Eastern don't let me down like that smh!! I could say much more but I will not bc my laptop is dying
For example the
I could complain about a lot more tbh like how if we're doing all this with Arthurian legend shouldn't there be some Matter of France stuff going around also, which is a lot more into the Lady Knight concept so if anything the conflict with Bridget shouldn't have been that she's a girl who's a knight but rather that "that only exists in stories" or something like that, or that the whole Cultist thing doesn't make sense because Belief in Magic and Catholicism aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, or that (and I'm saying this being Turkish and focusing in so many of my college classes on Middle Eastern & Muslim representation in medieval lit right so I should be happy about this) Arthur's being half-Persian felt like suuuch hollow representation since his mom, who he gets that identity from, died giving birth to him and he seemingly does not know or care to know ANYTHING about that side of him, has no complex feelings about not having access to that side of his heritage, etc which was weird since Bridget's being Thai didn't feel that way (to ME, maybe a Thai or generally Southeast Asian reader will feel differently) since it actually affected parts of her character and she still had a connection to her culture through her LIVING family members even though it was relegated to like one or two convos. If you're gonna get me hyped up for your MALE MAIN CHARACTER (who is actually the most likeable person in the story btw, Arthur ily) being half-Middle Eastern don't let me down like that smh!! I could say much more but I will not bc my laptop is dying