I’ll be honest, seeing the cartoon cover and how it was labeled “lighthearted” and “funny”, I assumed this book wouldn’t require much brain power to read (listen to in my case). It was very much just a funny and romantic story for most of it, and I wasn’t totally focused on remembering side characters or political stuff. This was perhaps a mistake. 

This book follows a group of four young queer people - a prince, a princess, a knight, and a rake-ish lord - navigating their relationships, their familial responsibilities, and learning about their sexuality. Figuring out how to be gay in a time where that was unacceptable. While the kindling love stories in here were cute and meaningful, my favorites were our titular characters, Gwen and Arthur. The pair despised each other growing up, but have been betrothed to the other practically since birth. Seeing them grow into friends and confidants was so fun and their banter was unmatched. Arthur is hilarious and the antics they all get into were entertaining. 

Now, if that were it, and all the couples figured out a way to be happy with one another and they all lived happily ever after, it would have been perfect and exactly what I had anticipated. It was much more complicated and nuanced and emotional than that. 

Aside from the quartet above, there were parents and body guards and lady maids and knights and squires and lords and captains and BIRDS!? and on and on. And I expected if they were particularly important they would come up often enough that I’d be able to follow their story. Not quite!!

This story sprinkles in some political intrigue here and there, but it was all really confusing to me - probably bc I couldn’t remember who was who and how they connected. When our characters start to realize things are getting fishy, you’ll get internal monologue that’s like ‘x person was seen up north the lord y was near but was visiting z and cousin a and person x are now sitting together so they must be colluding’. I had no idea what they were saying or who the good guys were or the bad guys when the climax comes. I could follow what was happening but who betrayed who or whatever? Don’t ask me. 

As for the climax, it was about 300x more intense than the rest of the book. You call this lighthearted!!?? So very dramatic and seemed out of no where to me but perhaps if I paid closer attention I could see all the hints leading to the eventual conclusion. To me it was a complete surprise!!

On top of all this, there is history and lore surrounding King Arthur thrown around. I don’t remember much at all about King Arthur from high school.. I know there a round table and a special sword and… that’s about it. So any importance these references had likely went over my head. 

In conclusion, I had a good time with this until about 75% in where things got serious and confusing. That is mostly my fault for not paying closer attention and actually thinking about and analyzing the story as it went on. But I think if you are going to have that many minor characters and a unique politic system and history, it should be memorable enough to be able to follow the story more seamlessly. It was not for me and I again was expecting lighthearted. Maybe I’m just dumb, real possibility. I’d consider rereading this in the future to connect all the dots I missed, but I just don’t feel like putting in the effort atm.