Book review of The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway by Ashley Schumacher

Madeline Hathaway grew up touring the nation together with her household and dealing a circuit of Renaissance faires. While dwelling in an RV and going to highschool on-line, Maddie spent her days surrounded by fake kings and wizards. She was pleased with this unconventional upbringing till her mom died of most cancers. 

Now, virtually a yr after her mom’s loss of life, Maddie continually searches for methods to grief-proof her life. She retains a journal stuffed with “noticing pages,” the place she tallies the whole lot from remedy periods to cups of tea. She believes that if she will observe and document the whole lot, she’ll be capable of maintain all of the mundane, valuable particulars of the individuals she loves protected in her reminiscence.

But when the circuit brings Maddie and her father again to Stormsworth, her mom’s favourite and remaining honest, it’s not the identical as in Maddie’s completely protected recollections. Stormsworth’s new house owners have made large modifications, turning the beforehand quaint honest right into a high-budget attraction. 

What’s extra, cheerful Arthur, the son of Stormsworth’s new house owners, appears decided to interrupt down all of the cautious fortress partitions Maddie has constructed round her coronary heart. Arthur insists on calling Maddie “Gwen” and declares that it’s her future to play the position of the honest’s princess, then drags her into the half. But might this charming bard with a penchant for enjoying pop songs on his lute have ulterior motives? Maddie’s grumpy resistance to Arthur’s unbridled enthusiasm makes for an entertaining dynamic full of banter and slow-burn sweetness. 

Amid all of the courtly whimsy, Maddie’s emotions of grief are grounded and tender, together with her journals and different coping mechanisms offering perception into her quiet desperation for management over her life. Maddie’s love for her mom is gently however powerfully woven all through her first-person narration, as each facet of the newly remodeled Stormsworth calls bittersweet recollections to thoughts. 

Compounding these feelings are different relatable teenage worries, resembling an absence of expertise together with her friends after a lifetime of home-schooling and emotions of self-consciousness and ambivalence towards how the world perceives her as a woman in a bigger physique. Author Ashley Schumacher treats all of Maddie’s feelings with the care they deserve, making every catharsis she experiences really feel like a triumph.

The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway is a humorous, honest story of therapeutic grief and blooming love in a spot the place the dragons could be papier-maché, however the magic is actual.