Oh my god! I'm all caught up!
With a super-fantastic
all-Meg-Cabot-all-the-time entry.
Yeah, not even close anymore. Dammit.
Anyways. Yeah, Meg Cabot books are my ultimate guilty pleasure books at the moment. Seeing as they're mostly aimed at young teenaged girls, and I am most certainly not one. But they're fluffy, and quick, and ridiculously entertaining. And Meg Cabot has the uncanny ability to create heroines with addictively sincere and authentic voices. They all sound like teenaged girls I know/knew/am/were/only was inside my head. And it's awesome.
Anyway, I somehow got addicted to Meg Cabot last summer when Laura ran across her blog and I thought it was pretty funny and decided to give one of her books a try. Unfortunately, I started with Queen of Babble, which I didn't hate per se, but the heroine was far too stupid to live and I really couldn't stand her. I'm pretty sure I then picked up the Heather Wells books. At which point I commenced laughing my ass off. And then, Amy and I were trapped in Vancouver with a bunch of misogynistic assholes and I picked up The Princess Diaries and there was just no turning back. The Princess Diaries are fucking awesome.
(TANGENT ALERT!! If you haven't read any of the books but did see
the movie, keep an open mind. Yeah, the movie was kinda cute, but it got a
lot of things wrong. Like Anne Hathaway being a twenty-yr-old beauty queen
where Mia is an awkward, gangly, 15-yr-old with seriously short blond
hair. And Julie Andrews being poised and regal where Grandmere is a
raging, manipulative, scheming, crazy-ass bitch (who is nonetheless
awesome). And instead of Mia's hilariously stoic Swedish boygaurd Lars
(whose also a big old teddy bear where Mia's concerned), we get Hector Elizando
as a chauffeur named Joe who annoyingly dispenses wisdom from the front
seat. The books are infinitely more interestign and engaging. OMG!
END OF TANGENT!)
This is the penultimate book in the series and it continues right along where 
#8 left off. Which means Mia is depressed, eating meat, and refusing to get out of bed while desperately shooting apologetic emails to Tokyo hoping she can take back the fact that she freaked out and broke up with her boyfriend just before he got on the plane. Yup, Mia's finally hit teenaged-girl rock bottom. Misery, depression, and apathy. Woo. Somehow, in the midst of teen depression, the book is still a riot. Comedy highlights include getting kidnapped by her father and boyguard and literally dragged kicking and screaming (while still wearing her grummy Hello Kitty pajamas) to a bizzare "cowboy therapist," going bra shopping with Lana Weinberger, the school blowing up, and incredulously having ranting about having gained almost an entire "Fat Louie" while at the doctor's office.
I loved it. It was sweet and endearing and Mia feels happy and hopefull going into book 10. But there's still lots of stuff to get cleaned/cleared up in the next one. The last one ever! Woo.
Pick up "The Princess Diaries" because they're awesome. And I mean it.
They are! Last year when I was on like book 5, Alan asked me online what I was up to. I said, "reading the Princess Diaries" and he said, "...oh, I'm reading Anna Karenina". Meh, Cabot, Tolstoy, it's all the same... :P
ReplyDeleteHee, yeah... I remember that. But then Anna Karenina always makes me think of Amy (who packed that book as her "vacation read" when we went to that conference in Mexico)... who also loves The Princess Diaries... and it comes around full circle!
ReplyDeleteFull circle!