Bridget and Gabe Are Not Okay
by Lex Croucher
read by Kishore Walker and Theodore Taylor
Macmillan Young Listeners, 2026. 12 hours, 4 minutes.
Review written August 26, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
This book is a sequel to Gwen and Art Are Not in Love, where we’ve got an alternate-reality medieval England featuring descendants of King Arthur. You should read the first book first, and then, like me, you’ll be delighted that there’s a sequel and you can spend more time with these characters.
But the events of the first book have left their mark. Gabe is now king, and he doesn’t feel up to the task, and he keeps having panic attacks that get him hiding in a closet. And Bridget has what amounts to PTSD – except of course there’s no name for that in medieval times. And both of those conditions are messing up the budding romances from the end of the first book. On top of that, there are rumblings in the country about the “Lancelot Laws” – that it’s okay for men to love men and women to love women. Not everyone’s happy about that, and I’m afraid the Catholic church hosts the main opposition.
In this book, they go on a quest. Gabe has an aide who amounts to a publicist, and she convinces him to assemble his own Round Table of knights and go on a quest to verify the reported sightings from Arthurian legend – a Questing Beast, a person purporting to be the Green Knight, another said to be the Lady of the Lake, and of course the Grail. This way, Gabriel’s subjects will get to know him.
So the quest throws them into a company that includes the two couples in question, and they track down each reported Arthurian legend. Most of them indeed have a natural explanation – but there’s a touch of wonder thrown in before the book ends that I did enjoy.
I hate to say it, because I loved the book, but this one felt a bit long. The couples went back and forth on being harmonious or at odds with one another, and the quest didn’t feel very focused, kind of wandering from one thing to another. On the other hand, I enjoyed the characters, and it’s not like mental health issues would have been easily resolved in medieval times – these are handled well.
Bottom line: Read the first book first. If you enjoy it, and want more from those characters, I’m happy to report that you can read on.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/bridget_and_gabe_are_not_okay.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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