In case you were not aware, I LOVE The Princess Diaries series. I have read all ten books (approximately) a million times, and they are so near and dear to my heart. This series played a huge role in my life (and my sister’s life) as I grew up, and I’m just having a blast rereading them this year.Princess in Training is actually one of my favorite books in the series—which, yes, I know it’s so meta to have favorite books in one of your favorite series.In this installment, Mia is dealing with a lot of big things: on top of being a princess—and having to endure painful princess lessons with her Grandmère—she has to deal with her best friend, Lilly, nominating her for class president against Lana Weinberger; her boyfriend possibly wanting to deflower her; being a “baby-licker” and constantly worrying about her new-born brother and all the ways he can a) get sick, b) get hurt, and c) die; her ex-boyfriend constantly chatting her ear off about his new “perfect” girlfriend, Heather; and an English teacher who—gasp!—questions and criticizes her identity as a writer. Oh, and I forgot that the UN was trying to exile Genovia because of this whole “snail” situation—long story.As usual, there’s a lot going on in this novel and it’s crazy and out of control, but it’s so wonderful for the very same reasons. Mia is always so frantic and panicked—as she should be, did you even read the list above?—but she’s always hilarious and witty; her type of crazy just works for me. Every book in this series is always so enjoyable to read because of Mia’s sarcasm and her immaturity; she over-thinks EVERYTHING and has very little experience (like, in everything) but that’s kind of what makes her such an uproarious character/voice to read! Everyone seems to think that Doing It is just, like, the pinnacle of experiences. Everyone except for me. Why am I the only person who, when she thinks about Doing It, feels nothing but…sweaty? And not in a good way. This can’t be a normal reaction. This has to be yet another genetic anomaly in my makeup, like absence of mammary glands and size-ten feet. I am totally lacking in the Do It gene.It’s so great to read narration like this, because Mia represents a larger population of teenage girls than she realizes; I found a lot of what she says relatable when I was growing up and I still feel that it’s applicable and valid now. I love that this book tackles such “taboo” topics, such as how to approach having The Talk with your significant other, literary merit, and other great social commentaries. There’s so much in this book that is important for young people—especially young girls, yes—to start thinking about. No, reading Princess in Training will not make a teenage girl an expert on comprehensive sex education—but it’s a GREAT start. We need more books out there like this one that are willing to talk about such a wide variety of topics from a realistic girl’s point of view, like Mia’s. I just like everything that this book has to offer and I adore it as the latter half of Mia’s journey begins. This is really the point when she starts to grow up a bit, shoulder some responsibilities, and, yes, bite the bullet and try to have The Talk with Michael Moscovitz, the love of her teenaged life. It’s witty and just the right amount of insane, but that doesn’t lessen its value—much like how Mia makes an argument for the relevance of pop culture references in academic work. Something can be hilarious and talk about things like Britney Spears and Sailor Moon without losing its meaning.I really love this book—I just thought I should reiterate that fact.
Until the last few pages of the book, I was going to give this one star for the simple reason that I just did not like it. At all.Some of my complaints (this is by no means a complete list):*I need the adults in Mia's life to step up and start acting like the adults. When Mia came to her mother and was asking questions about sex, her mother probably should have pushed more and given Mia more information. It was CLEAR TO ME that Mia was not handling things well. I just really think Mia's mother should have talked to Mia more.*Just in general, I was uncomfortable with the way sex was handled in this up until the conversation Mia and Michael had at the end of the book.*Mia vs. Lana for student council president? REALLY? They are sophomores. There are NO juniors or seniors who wanted to run?? This would have been a lot more believable if they had been running for sophomore class president.*I was all ready to like this book a little more during Mia's speech. The first part of it, that is. THEN SHE WENT OFF ON THAT TANGENT ABOUT HOW IT WAS OKAY FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS FOR ENGLISH. Well, no. Actually Mia, sometimes when your teacher tells you the assignment is to write about more serious subjects, you just do it. Sending your father to complain about your B? That's not okay, and I didn't like that this book made it seem like it WAS okay. I agree with your teacher, who is NOT being unreasonable. All I see Mia writing about are frivilous things, with a true teenage girl flair.*Honestly, I do not like any character in this book except Michael. And even he is sometimes confusing because I do not understand Michael/Mia. I need to be able to ship this but it is not working for me.The things I did like:*Principal Gupta is a fairly accurate portrayal of my experience with school authority, catering to Lana's complaints and ignoring how Lana is actually at the root of a lot of the problems. Honestly, Principal Gupta was probably more with it than a lot of the teachers/administrators in my experience. So, I guess this isn't something I "liked" so much as I found it fairly true to life. For the school experiences in this book, at least.*The New York stuff, as always, was excellent.
What do You think about Princess In Training (2006)?
I really do enjoy these books.This one in particular made me realize something. In earlier books, I got a bit fed up with Mia for being so dense about certain things... but somehow, during this volume, suddenly I recalled with perfect clarity (and the advantage of hindsight) how COMPLETELY NAIVE AND CLUELESS I was at that age. I got worked up over all kinds of minor issues, completely read ridiculous things into the smallest comment or behavior, and generally was a giant idiot. Oh yes, that was me at that age, and I could definitely feel for Mia... in a slightly wince-inducing way. (Man, I never want to think about a lot of those times again.)I laughed a lot at this volume, and in particular, the references to Sailor Moon were cracking me up because I too started watching that in high school, as did a bunch of my friends. It makes me want to do some calculations to figure out how old Mia is. When I did that for Harry Potter (after they finally mentioned the date on his parents' gravestone) I realized he is the same age as me!Honestly? I think just about any book that repeatedly mentions Sailor Moon is going to have a warm spot in my heart. Heh.(All that said, Michael was weirding me out a bit in this book. Huh. We'll see what happens later. I guess sometimes what strikes Mia, or the author, as a grand romantic gesture might not do the same for me.)
—Julie
REQUIRED AUTHOR, ROMANCEI couldn't handle this book. I've read silly books as a preteen so I thought I would do ok with this one, but it nearly drove me crazy. There was absolutely no plot, just the diary of a very selfish preteen girl with no real thought. All that happened was she nearly destroyed the ecosystem of her own country and seemed to think that it wasn't that big of deal, and she was afraid her college boyfriend would want to "do it." That was the entire novel. I have nothing good to say about it, I felt like it was torturous to read and I'm slightly shocked it got published. If I was stuck in side the head of an airhead, I would at least hope that something happened in the plot to make up for it, but there was no plot to this book! I definitely would not recommend this one.
—Megan Horrocks
It is sophomore year and what is a princess to do? Between running for Student Class President (thanks to Lilly and her nomination), struggling to pass Geometry which is just as bad as Algebra was, and missing Michael who is now in college all the way across town, life is crazy as ever for NY on royal. But then Lana has too go make it worse by informing Mia that now that Michael is in college he is going to want more than a goodnight kiss...ALOT more!After reading the first book in this series I went to the library and just happened to see the rest of the books (11 of them) sitting on the shelf so I loaded them into my bag and found myself diving into a week long Princess fest. And I enjoyed ever minute of it!This whole series is a fun, light hearted read, though in this book and on, it focuses more on sex (talk rather than action) than some parents might find appropriate for their teen daughters. I would suggest a read through first. How can I not like a book that mentions both Farscape and Sailormoon in it? Not to mention Mia is even more obsessed with Buffy than I was.
—Sabine
