The Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries is about Mia who finds out that she's a princess. It deals with he first month or so after finding out. For once the movie is much better than the book.

My enjoyment of this book was pleasantly surprising. Nothing like the movies (AT ALL), I found the story far more interesting. A great coming of age novel - something everyone will find a piece to relate too. ( )

I was really looking forward to reading this book, I never read it as a kid, but I've seen the movie several times and really liked it. However, this book really disappointed me. I'm not sure what it was, but I just did not enjoy this book. I didn't like Mia at all and that made it really hard for me to get into the story. I found her and her friend Lilly quite annoying.
Maybe this is one book that I'm too old to understand, but to be honest I don't think I'd have enjoyed it when I was younger either.
I thought the movie was way better than the book in this case! ( )

This is a wry, clever novel which captures perfectly the utter nonsense, melodrama, and urgency of being a 14 year-old girl.

Basic premise: Mia Thermopolis, the illegitimate daughter of a high-spirited artist and cancer-surviving (now impotent) royal prince, learns of her heritage when it becomes clear that her father can produce no further heirs. She reacts badly, as most teenagers do when major life changes are forced upon them. Faced with new celeb status, an impatient, Galois-smoking, Sidecar-drinking Francophone grandmother determined to make her A Proper Princess, and a bodyguard who shadows her every move, Mia has to pull it together if she wants to embrace her heritage and save the whales.

I loved the absurdity of this book. Mia may have no idea how funny she is, but Meg Cabot sure does, causing Mia's narration to be unconsciously hilarious. The best thing, though, is that Cabot has captured the bizarre, focused genius of teens.

Although it wasn't too many years ago that I was a teen myself, I didn't appreciate teenagers until I began working with them. So many teenagers are brilliant and determined, as well as being determined to completely ignore that side of themselves. When teens decide to learn things -- and they have to actively decide -- many have a very coherent logic strung together from the information they have. In fact, a lot of misunderstandings seem to stem from faulty information ("I heard somewhere that this is the case, therefore it is true and I cannot be convinced otherwise!") rather than an unwillingness to learn. With Mia, it's eggs. In a throwaway line, Mia discusses her mother making omlettes with Egg Beaters instead of real eggs. While she's very pleased with her mother's attempt to adhere to her dietary restrictions, she decided upon ovo-lacto vegetarianism once she learned that eggs are unfertilized, and that no baby chicks would be murdered to make her breakfast. This is an example of a teen filtering information, researching things that are important to her, and expecting the world to change around her because she has been told to be the change she wants to see in the world.

Mia is a devout anti-fur, vegetarian, wannabe environmental activist. When she is told that she has to become a princess, she announces that she is going to graduate, work for Greenpeace, and save the baby seals (this scene is hilarious). She refuses to compromise on her ethics, and nothing will convince her otherwise, whether it is pressure from a cute guy or her Grandmere's snide commentary.

I love this girl.

It's not just that I love seeing vegetarians show up in books (it's very nice when they're not pitching hissy fits constantly). This is a girl who decides that if she has to have all this press coverage, she'll just wear all of her best Greenpeace buttons so that at least someone benefits from the publicity. This is the person I want to see as the monarch of a small country. She's shallow and superficial a lot of the time, but so are most 14 year-olds, and her vapidness is nicely balanced with an honest wish to save the world and help her friends (even while she's continually exasperated that she has to take Algebra).

Light, fun, and a pleasure to read. ( )

There’s a paradoxical question about, if one had the chance to go back in time, what wisdom would they impart on their younger selves? Seeing as how I really haven’t learned much in ten years, I’m not a fan of this question. (Also, John Green dealt with it better in one of his interviews.) If I had a time machine, I would go back to two very specific times, and tell my younger self, “Heads up, this is going to be on the test.” The second of these dates is about winter on my freshman year, wherein I run into my awkward, geeky fifteen year old self contemplating the incredibly girly looking book (it’s pink and has a sparkly tiara on the cover!) . To which I, being slightly wiser about these things, hand it over and say, “This book is going to change your life.”

Sound presumptuous, I know. Especially when you realize that in those ten years, I’ve gone through many more books of higher quality which I recommend on a daily basis. (Ignoring the fact that many of these books weren’t around in 2001…) What is it about this book that I keep coming back to? Why do I hold this up above all of these other books and authors that I love and adore?

Here’s why: I could relate. When I picked this up way, way back in the day, I found in Mia a character I could relate to. Someone who was going through a lot of the same things that I was dealing with at the age. (Without the princess thing. Or the father’s cancer. Or my mother dating a teacher. I think the only thing I had in common with Mia was that we were both failing algebra.) At the time, I had a hard time finding books that could deliver that. Sure, I read very good YA books, but I never connected with the characters. And to this day, even on the nth-millionth reading of it, I still love this book. Sure, I think Mia’s fairly immature about certain things, and that a lot of the characters can be grossly exaggerated. But there’s still that sense of being able to relate to these characters, even if it’s more “Yup, that’s how I used to be.” It’s such a fun book, and a well-done one at that. The only real problem I had with this reread is that the copy I have replaced a lot of the outdated references, to which my mind did a mental halt whenever I start seeing Kayne West get name-dropped. (Again, I read this book all the time during my sophomore year. Yeah. Bit obsessed.)

So, yes, I’ve read much better books. I’ve found other authors to fawn over. My writing’s gotten better with more exposure. But to be completely and perfectly honest with you? The Princess Diaries has done a lot more for me, both as a writer and a reader, than most other books have.

It’s still my favoritest book ever.
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