Book Review: All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle
[ID: A book with two teens embracing in front of tv cameras (one wearing a white dress and one with his arm in a sling) on the cover which is laying on a gray wooden floor surrounded by pink roses. A gold ribbon loops around the right side of the book with a black old fashioned ink pen laying parallel to the book and a blue butterfly placed above it.]
All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle, released Feb 15th 2022
Thank you so much to the author & the Simon Teen team for the opportunity to review an advanced review copy of this book! I was initially intrigued by the promise of disability representation written by a disabled author. Ultimately, I thought this book was super cute!
Synopsis:
Cara’s life fell apart after her father cheated and got remarried to a woman Cara can’t stand. When Cara’s private journal accidentally goes viral, it catches the attention of the producers behind a new reality dating show for single parent families.
Whisked away to the wilds of reality tv, Cara begins to develop feelings for a contestant’s son, Connor, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. But as the cameras heat up and the pressure builds, Cara’s bond with her mother is tested. Can Cara find love and preserve her family?
My thoughts:
I’m not a reality tv fan so this book was in many ways outside of my comfort zone. However, Mangle’s snappy prose really won me over. It’s the kind of fluffy book to read post-Valentine’s with a huge bag of cheese puffs and a certain level of suspension of disbelief.
I did wish that we saw more emotional development for Cara (wouldn’t it be more traumatizing to have your family’s dirty laundry aired out on tv?) but I thought the end included important lessons about respecting yourself, finding your own worth, and fighting for love. The disability rep is honestly a minuscule part of the plot, but I love to see a disabled character that isn’t solely defined by their disability and allowed to just… be.
I was entertained by this book and it gives me hope for the future of casual yet real disability rep. I think fans of teen lit and reality tv will have good fun with this one.
Originally posted on Instagram on February 12, 2022.