Synopsis:
‘You’re not Mia Thermopolis any more, honey,’ Dad said. ‘You’re Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo. Princess of Genovia.’ A PRINCESS?? ME??? Yeah. Right. One minute Mia’s a totally normal Manhattan fourteen-year-old. Next minute she’s heir to the throne of Genovia, being trailed by a bodyguard, taking princess lessons with her uncontrollable old grandmere, and having a makeover with someone called Paolo. Well, her dad can lecture her till he’s royal blue in the face, but no way is Mia going to turn herself into a style-queen. And they think she’s moving to Genovia? Er, hello?
Review:
I feel like I would have loved this book as a teen but as an adult it’s problematic. Like surprisingly problematic. I get that this came out over 20 years ago, and the world has changed a lot since then, but some of the language used made me uncomfortable–especially how Mia talked about her trans neighbour. The book really showed its age then, but honestly 20 years isn’t that long ago and there’s never any excuse to talk in these ways.
I was genuinely surprised at how different this is from the films. I adore the films and they’re big comfort watches for me, so you can imagine how disappointed I was. The only part of the book that is the same is that Mia is a princess. That’s literally it. They really took a lacking book plot and expanded it exponentially for the film. I assume the film uses plotlines from other books in the series but I doubt I’ll ever read them so I’ll never know.
Now one thing I did like was Mia’s narrative tone. It felt like she was talking directly to the reader, which she was because this is her diary, and she sounded exactly like a 13 year old. Which obviously came with it’ issues of her not being terribly likeable. Don’t even get me started on Lily–she’s the worst.
I also liked that this was a quick read. I do think the book could have been a little longer as nothing really happened. Mia had her princess lessons and went to a dance, that’s pretty much it. I would have also liked for less time to be spent on Lily’s drama.
Sadly, I don’t have much else to say about this book that isn’t negative. I was hoping it would be a comfort read that I’d want to come back to in the future, but no.
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