Book Club: Princess in Training and Party Princess

The Princess Diaries Book Club is an ongoing collaboration with my friend Cilla and her blog, Paved with Books. We decided that we would reread this series, at our own pace, and always come back to our blogs and each other to discuss the story and how we feel about it now. If you are interested in joining us, please do!

Title: Princess in Training (The Princess Diaries #6)

Author: Meg Cabot

Rating: ★★★

Provided Synopsis: Princess for president!

Student body president, that is — nominated by her power-mad best friend, Lilly. This is not how Mia imagined kicking off her sophomore year, but as usual, she has bigger problems to worry about, like Geometry. And now that Mia’s one true love, Michael, is uptown at college, what’s the point of even getting up for school in the morning? But the last straw is what Lana whispers to her on the lunch line about what college boys expect of their girlfriends. . . . Really, it’s almost more than a princess in training can bear!

Review: Surprisingly, this installment of the Princess Diaries series went down much smoother than the others. There was still the problem of Lily, as she attempted to manipulate her way into the Student Council presidency through the nomination of Mia. But there was also a significant amount of growth here for Mia as she copes with a student government election, the question of whether Michael expects them to become sexually active now that he is a college student, and the repercussions of her environmental actions on the international level.

Mia has begun to open her eyes: as a princess she has a responsibility to think of how her actions and opinions will impact the Genovian people. She also realizes that the promises she makes to people in a government capacity mean something for her, and that she wants to take the responsibility. Whereas she usually obsesses over something with Michael until the last minute, this time around she told him how she felt. This is progress! This is what I have been waiting to see, if you have been following these book club discussions. This book made me look forward to the next one because there has to be more from here on out.

 

Title: Party Princess (The Princess Diaries #7) 

Author: Meg Cabot

Rating: ★★1/2

Provided Synopsis: Princess just want to have fun . . . And Mia does too, despite the fact that the student government over which she presides is suddenly broke. But Grandmere’s got a wacky scheme to raise the money, catapult Mia to theatrical fame, and link her romantically with an eligible teen bachelor who’s not her boyfriend. No wonder Michael seems to think she’s a psycho, or worse: not much fun. Is it possible that Mia, soon-to-be star of the stage, president of the student body, and future ruler of Genovia, doesn’t know how to party?

Review: I didn’t hate it. But is it just me, or did this feel like it could have been a novella? Mia is invited to a party at Michael’s house and she is not sure what to do or how to act because she is not a “party girl.” The student council that Mia runs is broke and she needs to find a way to gather money for the seniors graduation. Grandmere has written a musical, and has enlisted students from Mia’s school to perform it. There was a LOT of things happening in this book, though I have to ponder: did any of this advance the characters?

Mia is still not communicating completely with Michael. But she has learned that a president (or anyone in charge of a government) should pay attention to the money rather than delegating the responsibility to another. Mia sells herself short in terms of a role in Grandmere’s play, insisting that Lily “deserves” it for no other reason than she continues to be under that girl’s thumb. The grand gesture at the end was so cheesy it was cringe-worthy (although that could be my age speaking, since I am clearly not the target age-group of this series anymore). And really, did any of this need to happen to progress the story of the series?!