Since her mother’s death, Madeline “Gwen” Hathaway has been determined that nothing in her life will change ever again. That’s why she keeps extensive lists in journals, has had only one friend since childhood, and looks forward to the monotony of working the ren faire circuit with her father. Until she arrives at her mother’s favourite end-of-tour stop to find the faire is under new management and completely changed.
Meeting Arthur, the son of the new owners and an actual lute-playing bard, messes up Maddie’s plans even more. For some reason, he wants to be her friend – and ropes her into becoming Princess of the Faire. Now Maddie is overseeing a faire dramatically changed from what her mother loved and going on road trips vastly different from the routine she used to rely on. Worst of all, she’s kind of having fun.
The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway gets published March 14th, 2023!
This book first opens up with our main character, Maddie, meeting the Wizened Old Wizard back when she was a child. This mysterious renfaire vendor tells her to “tame the world” before disappearing and never being seen by Maddie again.
Because of this opening, I had assumed a big part of this book was going to be Maddie searching for this Wizened Old Wizard again and asking what exactly he meant by “tame the world.” That a large part of her character development would revolve around this meeting.
I was wrong.
The Wizened Old Wizard never appears again in this book, which I thought was an interesting choice. For a character who seemed so important in the beginning, the wizard really had nothing to do with the plot.
Instead, this book focuses on Maddie learning how to live life and not be caught up in the details after her mother’s death leaves her wishing to remember every small thing about the world around her. As she is stuck in this obsessive compiling of information, she meets Arthur, who refuses to call her anything but “Gwen” and makes her go on road trips with him.
He’s also one of the dorkiest characters I’ve ever met, and I really liked his introduction.
I was a little disappointed in this book, as it focused quite a bit on Maddie jumping to conclusions without talking it out with the other characters. There’s this coin Maddie believes to somehow be able to tell the future, and she uses it to “confirm” her negative feelings instead of trying things out for herself and making her own ideas. A lot of this book is Maddie being too stubborn to try out new experiences in this book and having a negative outlook on practically everything, which didn’t really make for a fun read.
I also want to point out that a significant part of this book focuses on how both Maddie and Arthur perceive their own bodies. While I feel like I can’t speak on Maddie’s side of the story, as I myself am not fat and don’t feel comfortable decreeing whether or not this is good representation, I will say that I really enjoyed seeing Arthur struggle a little with feeling “too skinny” and the toxic masculinity that may be present in boys’ perceptions of themselves. This topic isn’t seen as much in books, so I really appreciate the author even devoting a little bit of time into pointing it out.
The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway certainly wasn’t one of my favorite books, but it wasn’t bad, either. I just think it was different from what I was expecting.
KiiitasticBooks 