Early Book Review: Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren

Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren is currently scheduled for release on June 25 2024. It is a modern reimagining of Disney’s Tangled and part of the Meant to Be collection. She has a dream. He has a plan. Together they’ll take a leap of faith.

Ren has never held an iPhone, googled the answer to a question, or followed a crush on social media. What she has done: Read a book or two, or three (okay, hundreds). Taught herself to paint. Built a working wind power system from scratch. But for all the books she’s read, Ren has never found one that’s taught a woman raised on a homestead and off the grid for most of her twenty-two years how to live in the real world. So when she finally achieves her lifelong dream of attending Corona College, it feels like her life is finally beginning. Fitz has the rest of his life mapped out: Graduate from Corona at the top of his class, get his criminal record wiped clean, and pass himself off as the rich, handsome player everyone thinks he is. He’s a few short months from checking off step one of his plans when Ren Gylden, with her cascading blonde hair and encyclopedic brain, crashes into his life, and for the first time Fitz’s plan is in jeopardy. But a simple assignment in their immunology seminar changes the course of both their lives, and suddenly they’re thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire on a road trip that will lead them in the most unexpected directions. Out on the open road, the world somehow shifts, and the unlikely pair realize that, maybe, the key to the dreams they've both been chasing have been sitting next to them the whole time.

Tangled Up In You is a fun and engaging take on Tangled. I liked the nods o the names and temperaments to the Tangled universe, and I thought the differences were well chosen and helped make the story in into modern society very well. I though the give and take between Ren and Fitz was very well done, and highly entertaining. The shared vulnerability and trying circumstances for the pair had me rooting for them both through the whole book.  I thought the character development and building through the story was very well done- and even though I know the story well I was still surprised a could of times with the reveals. I enjoyed the read, and can appreciate the craft that went into it.