Book Review: Prepped by Bethany Mangle

This was so good!! Like a fiction, YA version of Educated by Tara Westover.

Becca and Roy live in a doomsday community located in a small town. Becca, the daughter of the leader of the community, is counting down the days until she turns 18 and can escape from her destiny. Roy, her assigned boyfriend, seems to be deeply, deeply enthusiastic for the mission, and is eager to prove himself to Becca's father. When the unthinkable happens and Becca's father is injured in a horrific accident which she and her little sister both witness, the community goes into hyper drive. Becca and Roy come together in the face of the tragedy and end up falling in love along the way.

Ok, so to start, the actions of the adults in this book are deplorable. Becca, whose is injured from a burning car wreck, is forced to relive the trauma and go through drills on what she should have done differently by her mother, who, I shit you not, is literally named Karen. The rest of the adults in the community are deeply in it, to the point where no one is using any critical thinking at all. I'd say it's a little too on the nose, but given what's happening in our world today with whack-jobs, maybe it's not all that far fetched after all.

Roy was a pleasant surprise, and I ended up liking him much more than any other character. Becca's little sister fulfilled the role of bratty little sister wonderfully, meaning I wanted to scream at the little shit whenever she appeared on the page.

The book's romance is genuine and both characters have chemisty, which isn't easy to do. The ending was pretty rushed and a little too escape-into-the-sunet-y for me, but I'm hoping it just means there will be a sequel to answer some of the questions and loose ends that weren't tied up at the end of the book.