Meant To Be, Book 4
From the publisher:
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.
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.“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
“This is a delight.” –Publishers Weekly
https://amzn.to/3VI4gWE
I was surprised to see a new Christina Lauren book a month after the publication of The Paradise Problem. Then I realized that this new book is part of an unusual series, Meant to Be. It’s unusual in that each book in the series has been written by a different author. I’ve read three out of the four so far, and I’ve enjoyed them all. They are based on various Disney movies; this one is based on Tangled (which I must admit I haven’t seen, but probably should – my grandson is really into all the Disney movies now!)
Ren has grown up on a homestead; a farm where they worked and raised all their food, and she was homeschooled as well. But she is incredibly bright, fluent in several languages (all self taught) so when she decides to go to college, she isn’t sure how her parents are going to react. They agree that she can go, but she is under the same strict rules she had at home. She is not allowed to go off campus, use the internet or computers for anything other than classwork, and her parents will pick her up every Friday afternoon and bring her back on Sunday night. She has to continue to do all her chores on the farm, and Ren is happy to go along with it. Until her science professor asks them all to do a DNA test.
Fitz is the fair-haired boy of Corona College; an athlete, top of his class, good-looking, and rich. Except everything is not as it seems. When Ren shows up, he realizes she may edge him out as the top student, and without that, he won’t get his criminal record expunged. His childhood was not the idyllic upbringing that most people assume.
Ren returns to the lab late one night to double-check that her DNA test results are accurate. There is a match for paternity, but she knows there is no way her father would have ever done such a test. Flummoxed, she does a bit of research and finds out this paternal match lives in Atlanta, Georgia, clear across the country. When she catches Fitz in unsavory circumstances, she blackmails him into driving her to Nashville, where he is headed for spring break. Aggrieved, he can’t see a way out of it. That road trip leads to a lot of feelings that they both try to push away.
I have to say I figured out what was happening fairly early on, not that I was looking, but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the story. It’s a fast-paced, sweet romance with some serious family drama. Christina Lauren for the win!
7/2024 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
TANGLED UP IN YOU by Christina Lauren. Hyperion Avenue (June 25, 2024). ISBN: 978-1368100649. 320p.
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