Meg Cabot
2002, Young Adult
HarperCollins, $15.99, 288 pages, Amazon ASIN 0060294671 Part of a series
Grade:
A-
Sensuality:
Kisses
Mia Thermopolis (full name: Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis
Renaldo) is a fourteen-year-old, vegetarian, environmentalist,
New-York-City-residing European princess. It has only been a few
months since Mia learned she was heir to the throne of Genovia, and
since she found this out, her life has been one catastrophe after the
next. In order that she might one day assume the throne, Mia must
practice deportment with her truly hideous grandmother. And while
she's trying to figure out how being a princess will affect her real
life, she still must pass Algebra, deal with the fact that her math teacher
has recently married her mother, and navigate the dangers of growing up.
One of those dangerous complications is having a boyfriend. All of a
sudden, Mia does. Kenny. But, unfortunately for both Mia and
Kenny, Mia's heart beats faster for someone else than it does for
Kenny. Mia is in love with her best friend Lilly's older brother
Michael. And she has been in love with him for forever. To
further confuse the issue, it looks like Michael is now involved with someone
else, Judith Gershner, who is a brain just like Michael, can clone a fruit fly, and who makes Mia feel completely unworthy and stupid. Despite the very large obstacles of
Judith and Kenny, Mia feels she must do something to win
Michael's heart. But will what she plans to do make a difference? Will
Michael ever notice her as a woman?
Princess in Love is so good primarily because it's so funny.
Mia's life through Mia's eyes is comical often to the point of
absurdity. She writes secret algebraic love poems to Michael, she makes
goofy To Do lists, she has run-ins with her scary grandmother,
she gets into numerous scrapes and she has no idea how to get out
of them. And all of this chaos is viewed with an adolescent
sense of angst and impending doom that somehow manages not to be sad or
pathetic, but funny in the extreme. Mia is a sort of savvy,
urban, new millenium Jane Purdy, and her
experiences are unreal yet quite familiar.
Mia views her world through the lens of pop culture, which makes
her seem more authentically teenaged. There are numerous
references to Buffy, Disney movies, Japanese anime, instant messaging,
current fashions - everything that a teenage girl might be
obsessed with merits a mention. In the long run, these references will
probably date the book, but for the present, Mia's concern with
what's hip adds a little more definition to her character and provides
further amusement as well.
I might make the recommendation that these Princess Diaries
books should be read in order. It isn't that the action or the
emotions of the characters aren't understandable out of order, but I
think there's an extra oomph to the ending of Princess in Love
for those familiar with how Mia has interacted with her friends, and
especially with Michael, in the previous books. It would be no
hardship to read The Princess Diaries or Princess in the
Spotlight. Both of them are enjoyable. The first book is
hysterically funny, and the second one is pretty good as well.
Princess in Love has two small flaws, neither of which impaired
my enjoyment of it in any significant way. First, occasionally,
very occasionally, Mia's observations seem to come from a much older
person than a fourteen-year-old. Part of the great charm of this
series is that Mia is an endearing mix of naivete and sophistication.
She freaks out over insignificant things, but takes much more
challenging problems in stride. Yet sometimes her musings have the
ring of an older, more educated person to them.
And, secondly, the book is written in diary format, but Cabot does
tinker some with the order of things and what is included to keep the
attention of the reader, make the tension higher, and the resolution
better. This is a nitpicky detail, since most readers won't care
whether a "real" diary would be written in this style or not. In fact,
I didn't care, but I did notice it, especially toward the end of the
book.
One further caveat: skip The Princess Diaries movie. Everything
enjoyable about these books, all of the quirky observational
humor and the funky secondary characterization, was erased from it and
replaced with third-rate slapstick gags.
I highly recommend this series in written format though. Mia is a
wonderfully engaging character, and I can't wait to see what life
throws at her next. I'm sure that, whatever it is, she'll think it's
CATASTROPHIC (!!!!!!), and I'll think it's hilarious.
LLB: I enjoyed this book as well, as did my daughter. Both of us graded this book a straight B {you can find my daughter's rankings and grades of Meg Cabot/Jenny Carroll's books (as well as links to Amazon) - and she's an in-house expert, having read eight of them! - following Rachel's DIK Review of All-American Girl}. Having read the first Princess book after my daughter read it five times and having also seen the movie, I'd have to disagree with Rachel on the movie. Yes, it's different (it's been Disney-ized), but speaking as a mom, it's a movie the entire family can see and enjoy together. Also, those who are enjoying this series should know that Princess in Waiting (titled Mia Goes Fourth in the UK) is currently in the works.
-- Rachel Potter
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