Tangled Up in You (Meant to Be Series)

Tangled Up in You (Meant to Be Series)
Christina Lauren, 2024

Premise: Ren had hardly ever been off her parents' remote homestead when she finally convinced them to let her attend college. Once there, she tried to live by her parents' rules, but her curiosity about the world (and about one cute troublemaker) would lead her to an unforgettable road trip that would reveal the truth about her past. 

So, I admit that I was very skeptical when I learned that Disney was hiring romance authors to write novels inspired by their animated films. I decided to try this one because I'd been entertained by another romance by Christina Lauren (https://bluefairysbookshelf.blogspot.com/2021/12/in-holidaze.html) so I figured this one would hopefully be passable. But I was worried that it would devolve into a game of spot-the-reference and be full of sequences that only made sense in the context of the original movie. 

Happily, this was not the case. This wasn't like a fanfiction that ineptly repeats the jokes of the source material; this was like a fanfiction that keeps the characters' core personalities and transplants them to a situation with only a superficial resemblance to the original, while still keeping the main plot beats. 

Ren (Rapunzel) is her bubbly, silly, optimistic, brilliant self, while Fitz aka Edward (Flynn aka Eugene) is charming and secretive, but good-hearted. (Side note: the book did a cute thing where the alternating-point-of-view chapters are titled "Fitz" until he tells her his full birth name, and then they switch to "Edward".)

I've tried a few other romance-novel fairy-tale retellings recently, and this was the most successful, and I think it's partly because it's the furthest from the fairy tale. It didn't need Ren to grow up in a literal tower and have mile-long hair. It needed her to be A) stolen as a child, B) grow up secluded from most people, and C) willing to go on a crazy voyage with a cute boy who is lying to her but also falling in love with her. That C element, where Tangled the movie departs the furthest from Rapunzel the fairy tale, is the main plot of the novel. 

Ren does a DNA test for her science class and finds out she might have family across the country. She knows Fitz is traveling that way and manages to invite herself along for a spring break road trip, while telling her parents that spring break is the following week so they won't know she's gone. Fitz is on his way to visit his former foster mom and take an interview for a job that's important to him for complex reasons. Adventures ensue.

I did sometimes find it awkward how I knew what was coming because it did roughly follow the plot. Street festival with dancing? Check. Romantic light show? Check. Gaslighting evil mom showing up at the eleventh hour? Check. But the characters and the details were different enough to keep me interested. 

Before you ask, this is a very low-spice romance. It's slightly more PG than the original novel (there's some heavy making out, the acknowledgment of physical attraction, and one instance of skinny dipping), but nothing more than that. 

Overall, the light tone, the fun characters, and the good writing won me over. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. It helps that I actually do like Tangled quite a lot, though, and if you dislike the movie, you'll probably dislike the fanfiction version.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book