Bethany Mangle Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Bethany Mangle
Bethany Mangle was born in Korea and grew up in New Jersey in a house filled with sheet music, books, and dog hair.

She writes young adult contemporary fiction, however her reading tastes are incredibly varied. She has a love for science fiction and fantasy.

When Bethany is not busy writing, she loves playing video games, baking questionable cakes, spoiling her dog, and spending time with her unbearably nerdy husband. She moves far too much in order to ever put a location in her bio ever again.

“Prepped” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2021. A teen is raised in a doomsday community that plots her escape with the boy from the bunker next door.

Always be ready for the worst day of your life. This is the mantra that Becca Aldaine has grown up with. Her family’s a part of this community of doomsday preppers, which is a neighborhood which prioritizes survivalist training over senior prom or class trips. They are even arranging Becca’s marriage with Roy Kang, who is the only eligible boy in their entire community. Roy’s a nice guy, however he is so enthusiastic about prepping that Becca doesn’t even have the heart to tell him that she will be planning on leaving just as soon as she can earn a full ride to a college that’s far far away.

This devastating accident rocks her family and pushes the whole community, including her typically cynical younger sister, ever deeper into the doomsday ideology. With her getaway plans being thrown into total jeopardy, the one person she can turn to is Roy, who reveals that he isn’t nearly as clueless as he was pretending to be.

Roy proposes they run away together, she’ll have to risk it all, and that includes her heart, for a tiny hope for the best instead of planning for the worst.

“All the Right Reasons” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2022. A laugh out loud young adult romance of a girl that joins her mom on this reality dating show for single parents just to fall for one contestant’s son.

Cara Hawn’s fell to pieces after her dad cheated on her mom and got remarried to a woman that Cara cannot stand. Cara accidentally posts this rant about her dad online, it goes viral and catches TV producers’ attention that are behind this new reality dating show for single parent families.

Next thing Cara and her mom know, they have been cast as the leads on this show and get whisked away to sunny Key West where they are asked to narrow this field of suitors and their children down to just a single winning pair. It is all outside of her comfort zone, from the camera hungry contestants and the meddling producers, particularly while Cara and her mom start clashing on which of the suitors are even worth keeping around. Then Connor comes around.

Connor, as the son of a contestant, is certainly off limits. But that does not fit in with the cutthroat atmosphere in all the same ways as Cara, and she just cannot get him out of her head. Now she has to juggle her growing feelings as she dodges the cameras and helping her mother pick out a bachelor that they both love, or else risk fracturing their family even further just for the sake of better ratings. Possibly there is a reason that most people do not date on TV.

Julia and Cara are the mom and daughter relationship that you root for and are totally adorable and real and they are incredibly likeable. Bethany delivers one of the funnest, cutest, and most delightful young adult novels. She writes with a fun and fresh voice and an excellently deadpan sense of humor.

“Conditions of a Heart” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2024. An unflinchingly honest and funny story about a teenager that must come to grips with her disability and what it really means for her love life, her future, and her identity.

Brynn Kwan is just desperate for her high school persona to be real. That Brynn’s head of the yearbook committee, the favorite prom queen, and certainly not crumbling from a secret disability that is rapidly wearing her down. If nobody knows the truth about her condition, she won’t have to worry at all about the accusations of being a faker or pitying looks that destroyed her childhood friendships. She is even willing to just let go of her four year long relationship with Oliver, her first love, instead of reveal that this necessary surgery was the real reason she ignored his existence for the whole summer.

However after Brynn attempts to break up with him at a pep rally and ends up being barred from all of her clubs and senior prom, she has nothing left to prop her up illusion of being exactly like everybody else. During a week long suspension from school, she learns that she does not quite recognize the face in the mirror, and it is not due to her black eye from the fight she got into. With a healthy sister that just does not understand and a confused ex that just won’t take the hint and go away like a normal human being, Brynn starts wondering if it is possible to reinvent her world by being the one person that she thought nobody wanted: herself.

This novel is achingly touching, true, and heartfelt, and Brynn’s tale of self discovery and reinvention resonates on every single page. It’s a book to hold dear and savor. It beats with intense feelings from lost love to the classic struggle of attempting to be exactly who you are. She weaves in an equally heartbreaking and hilarious narrative in a poignant tale about one disabled girl that struggles to find her place in this post-Covid world.

It’s the type of novel that keeps you laughing with its endless wry wit and emotionally captivates with its introspection of society’s own attitudes toward disability and health.