Fangirl Down is a newly published sports romance by Tessa Bailey, who you might remember as the author of "Wreck the Halls."
I did receive this book as an ARC, and it will be out in the world before this blog goes up, but I wanted to concentrate more on the Diabetes aspect than the sports rom-com aspect, because I found it really well done.
Fangirl Down follows Josephine Doyle, a golf-loving Type 1 Diabetic who finds herself watching her favorite hot-shot golfer quit and walk away from the game. She has supported him with signs from the sidelines every time he is in Florida and is shocked to see him give up on himself so quickly.
Wells Whitaker knows he has messed up by losing his only remaining fan, and when he goes to try to see if she can help him, he finds the pro shop she owns in disarray from a hurricane. While trying to offer her help to rebuild the shop, he learns she is struggling to get health insurance that will keep the cost of her supplies at a reasonable level. Even when he offers to pay, no questions asked, Josephine rejects it. That is until he offers to hire her as a caddy, bringing her to the next tour stop as he tries to scrap his reputation off the ground. Then, like most rom-coms, they get closer, understand each other more, and spicy-love things happy. It is a Tessa Bailey novel, so that is semi-expected.
Now lets get into how Diabetes is handled in the book, and the places where I felt myself somewhat swooning for a broody character I normally didn't like much.
I'm not sure if exact ages are stated, but we are well aware Josephine is over 26, mostly due to her saying she does not have access to her parent's health insurance anymore. This is a problem because it make insulin hard to get and she made some poor choices when it came to trying to save money to save the pro shop from going under. She mentions being diagnosed at 6 years old (same girl, same) and being watched over carefully by both of her parents. That is unless her best friend Tallulah is with her. (I feel this too girl, though my bf was Teresa).
One thing that comes up fairly quickly is Josephine treating low blood sugars with glucose tablets after her CGM alerts her. From context clues you can tell that Josephine uses a Libre and takes shots from insulin pens. She tends to keep track of her sugars on her phone, which will alert for lows and highs. The other thing she mentions is finally being over the self-consciousness of having the CGM on the back of her arm, which was something I still find myself struggling with sometimes. We get other scenes where she is changing it and mentions not liking the anticipation of the needle (BRO SAME). We see her pause before eating to calculate insulin, keeping snacks and tablets on her for lows and overall being very well aware of how her body is feeling.
One of my favorite scenes was Josephine being notably cranky and having trouble concentrating because her sugars had been high, and she goes into a moment of explaining to Wells how sometimes it just takes a while to feel better and for your brain to catch up. She takes shots, tries to relax before jogging a bit to jumpstart the process of getting her sugars down before 'becoming' herself again.
If I'm being honest, there were a lot of parts of this book where I just felt seen, and I can't believe it.
Now into one of my favorite parts of the discussions/handling of Diabetes in the text. Overall, Wells wasn't one of my favorite male main characters I've read. Even in his POV I found myself wanting to strangle him a lot.
BUT THEN.
The man makes sure her fridge at the tournament is stocked with juice. He askes what her numbers mean and calls her parents to ask how to be prepared. THE MAN GETS GLUCAGON to make sure he can help with lows. He drives hours when her sensor readings stop showing up on his phone. HE GETS HER NUMBERS TO HIS PHONE! Ugh. But outside of all of these things, even Josephine mentions not feeling like she is fragile, or having him treat her like she could break at any moment. He trusts her to make her own choices with how she handles her Diabetes, while being there to support and understand. It was just so shocking to me, I've never had many situations where I felt weird talking to people I know about my Diabetes, but to have a character, someone, just go so easily into understanding made my heart skip a beat.
Having someone write something that makes a lot of my own internal thoughts feel validated was really nice, and sure, Wells Whitaker is fictional but there is a chance to have someone understand without feeling like they need to control me and I just really find comfort in that thought.
Tessa Baily mentions writing this book and having a Diabetic character because of her daughter's diagnosis and I could see the care she put into making the character and adding it into the plot overall.
The book itself was around a 3.5 for me, I liked other parts but this kind of rom-com isn't always my fave. How Diabetes was handled definitely pushed the number up a bit, and I found myself really into the book when I started to notice these little pieces in the story.
This book was published Feb 13, 2024. So be sure to check it out!
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