Tangled Up in You

I’ve been loving the Meant to Be series, in which beloved Disney movies are reimagined into contemporary romances. The latest installment is Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren, taking the 2010 film Tangled (one of my favorite Disney movies!) and giving it an exemplary new spin.

Special thanks to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Review

If you haven’t seen the movie Tangled, do yourself a favor and watch it now. You don’t need to have seen it to enjoy Tangled Up in You, but if you have, the enjoyment will be so much greater. This book brings those characters to new life, here in the forms of Ren and Fitz, and puts them into an all-new scenario that works perfectly with the original story arc.

Ren Goldwyn (our modern-day Rapunzel) has spent her entire life living on a remote homestead in Idaho, largely isolated from society. At 22, she’s extremely smart and knowledgeable, even though she’s never been to school. She’s finally starting college in Spokane, WA, despite her parents’ extreme reservations and strict rules, and her naive innocence and irresistible personality make a big impression on her fellow classmates. But when she takes a DNA test as part of a class, the paternal match she makes is a shock. Could this man way out in Atlanta be her real dad? What about the man she’s known as Dad all her life? What about her mom? Ren blackmails her classmate Fitz into driving her across the country, without her parents’ knowledge. Guarded as he is, the two are catching feelings for each other… but Ren’s world may be about to be turned upside down.

At first what I loved most about Tangled Up in You is simply all the ways it felt true to the film Tangled. Christina Lauren did a fabulous job of capturing Rapunzel and Flynn’s personalities and adapting them to the modern world. Ren is just as enthusiastic, likable, naive, and determined, and I could easily envision her. Likewise, Fitz has the same charming front hiding a secret past and is a man who is very guarded. There are also so many little references that fans of the movie will immediately catch. For example, Fitz’s vehicle is a white Ford Mustang that he’s named Max.

But beyond the obvious movie tie-in, Tangled Up in You fully stands on its own. It unfolds into a beautiful story that is at once engaging, sweet, heartbreaking, and believable (even with its bombshell revelations). I fell in love with these characters not simply for their movie counterparts, but for their own individuality that shines throughout this book.

Final Thoughts

Tangled Up in You is a fabulous story for Disney fans and non-fans alike. It will appeal to people who’ve seen Tangled as well as those who haven’t—it stands on its own, even while fully paying homage to the film. It’s part coming-of-age story, part slow burn romance, with a healthy dose of shocking action by the end. I found this novel utterly charming, and it’s probably my favorite in the Meant to Be series so far. This is my first time reading Christina Lauren, and I am excited to read more from them soon!

Get the Book

You can buy Tangled Up in You here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren
Series	Meant to Be (#4)
Audience	Adult
Genre	Romance
Setting	Spokane; Idaho; Nashville; Atlanta
Number of Pages	320
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	June 25, 2024
Publisher	Hyperion Avenue

Official Summary

A witty and deeply romantic modern reimagining of Disney’s Tangled, by the New York Times bestselling author duo Christina Lauren, part of the acclaimed and bestselling Meant to Be collection.

“I dare you to not fall wildly in love with Ren and Fitz! Christina Lauren as a writing duo is a national treasure.” — Jesse Q. Sutanto, National Bestselling author of DIAL A FOR AUNTIES and VERA WONG’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS

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.