Set amidst the summer of a newly-upgraded Renaissance Faire, Ashley Shumacher’s young adult romance The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway (2023) is a sweet story of Madeline, a fat girl dealing with grief after the loss of her mother and her reluctant falling for a bespectacled, lute-playing boy, Arthur. Arthur’s dads have recently bought the park, where Madeline and her parents have spent the summer for years, along with many other vendors.
But this is the first time at this park after her Mom has passed, and Madeline knows it won’t be the same. Her dad will barely speak, and she has to help in their booth by making the jewelry her mom used to. But Arthur names her Gwen, and is sure she will make an amazing Faire Princess, and has convinced his fathers to choose her.
Slowly, they become friends, through Arthur’s persistence, video games, and midweek road trips. Maddie opens up. But as the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death gets closer and closer, she’s not sure she can open herself up to that kind of loss again. Even though Arthur really is kind to her, and funny, and never wavered once that she has deserved to be Faire princess. Can she decide that she deserves it, and that Arthur is worth the risk as well?
It is fat-positive, although Maddie does express internalized anti-fat bias in her thoughts and in some of her discussions. But no other character affirms any anti-fatness, and Maddie does experience growth in her self-image, being able to see her body in a more neutral and positive way through the book.
If you like YA and renaissance faires, and fat-positive books, I recommend it. It’s cute, and sweet, and full of musings about fate and chance, and the grief is there, but it’s not all-encompassing.
Reading While Fat 