Summary
Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo may seem the luckiest girl ever.
She's a princess, for starters. She also lives in New York City. And while she's no supermodel, mirrors do not crack at her reflection. Best of all, she finally has a boyfriend.
The truth is, however, that Mia spends all her time doing one of three things: preparing for her nerve-racking entree into Genovian society under the slave-driving but elegant Grandmere, slogging through congestion unique to Manhattan in December, and avoiding further smooches from her hapless boyfriend, Kenny.
All she wants is a little peace and quiet...and a certain someone else to be her boyfriend. For Mia, being a princess in love is not the fairy tale it's supposed to be...or is it?
Publisher's Weekly Review
Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo of Genovia, also known as Mia, prepares to meet the populace of her newfound kingdom all while trying to dump one boyfriend for another in Princess in Love, the third in the Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
The third volume of this series really comes into its own--Princess MiaÆs voice is both assured and funny as she continues to muddle through ninth grade, worrying about whether sheÆll pass algebra and whether Sebastiano, next in line to the Genovian throne, will try to assassinate her. Plus, this ever-more-likable heroine finally reveals her feelings for Michael, her best friendÆs older brother. From HORN BOOK Fall 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-9. Fans of the first two installments of The Princess Diaries will be just as delighted with this new volume. Mia's voice is as strong as ever and the story line is more satisfying than the plot of Princess in the Spotlight. The diary picks up with a blow-by-blow account of Mia's two Thanksgiving celebrations and concludes with a jubilant entry written aboard the Royal Genovian jet on December 20. In between, readers will be captivated by two weeks' worth of Mia's fretting about her upcoming algebra final, her presentation to the Genovian people, and Kenny's tardiness in inviting her to the Albert Einstein High School Nondenominational Winter Dance. She also obsesses about Michael's relationship with his brilliant lab partner and gets even with her grandmother and an enterprising fashion designer. It's a good thing three more volumes of the diary are forthcoming, because Cabot has secured Mia's position as teen readers' new best friend. Chris Sherman.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-9-Teenage angst rears its head with a vengeance in the third title in the Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot (HarperCollins, 2002). Despite her royal heritage, high school student Mia Thermopolis suffers from terminally bad hair days, anxiety over why she doesn't find kissing nearly as enticing as her boyfriend Kenny does, and the torture of a never-ending series of royal etiquette lessons conducted by her imperious Grandmere. And what about Mia's true love, Michael, a senior and the brother of her best friend? Is he in love with his brainy science project partner, and how can Mia compete with a girl who can clone fruit flies? Although Anne Hathaway's narration seems a bit stilted during the first few chapters, it picks up speed as she assumes Mia's character and mannerisms, resulting in a listening delight. With breathy speech that is a perfect mimic of "Valley Girl-speak," Hathaway proves herself more than capable of entering into the mind, heart, and soul of a princess in love.-Cindy Lombardo, Orrville Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
What is a princess to do when she doesn't feel sparks fly after kissing Kenny, her supposed boyfriend, because she's really in love with her best friend's brother, high-school senior Michael Moscovitz? And, oh yeah, Michael is probably falling for a girl who cloned a fruit fly, her mother is expecting the baby of her algebra teacher, no one has asked her to the Nondenominational Winter Dance (not even Kenny), and she has to prepare for her Christmas-time introduction to the populace of Genovia. Once again, Mia captures all her ups-and mostly downs-in her diary, which is all told in perfect teenage vernacular. But when some of her greatest dilemmas are discovering the nuances of French kissing and a one-day suspension for thwarting a student walkout, readers can't help but love this self-obsessed (i.e., normal) teenager. Princess lessons with Grandmere may be paying off in this volume, as Mia's self-deprecating humor gives way to a newfound spunkiness. The third in the series (Princess in the Spotlight, 2001, etc.) has the best ending yet, which proves that princesses-even tall, flat-chested, algebraically challenged ones-always find true love. (Fiction. 12-15)
Excerpts
The Princess Diaries, Volume III: Princess in Love Chapter One English Class Assignment (Due December 8): Here at Albert Einstein High School, we have a very diverse student population. Over one hundred and seventy different nations, religions, and ethnic groups are represented by our student body. In the space below, describe the manner in which your family celebrates the uniquely American holiday, Thanksgiving. Please utilize appropriate margins. My Thanksgiving by Mia Thermopolis 6:45 a.m. -- Roused by the sound of my mother vomiting. She is well into her third month of pregnancy now. According to her obstetrician, all the throwing up should stop in the next trimester. I can't wait. I have been marking the days off on my 'N Sync calendar. (I don't really like 'N Sync. At least, not that much. My best friend, Lilly, bought me the calendar as a joke. Except that one guy really is pretty cute.) 7:45 a.m. -- Mr. Gianini, my new stepfather, knocks on my door. Only now I am supposed to call him Frank. This is very difficult to remember due to the fact that at school, where he is my first-period Algebra teacher, I am supposed to call him Mr. Gianini. So I just don't call him anything (to his face). It's time to get up, Mr. Gianini says. We are having Thanksgiving at his parents' house on Long Island. We have to leave now if we are going to beat the traffic. 8:45 a.m. -- There is no traffic this early on Thanksgiving Day. We arrive at Mr. G's parents' house in Sagaponic three hours early. Mrs. Gianini (Mr. Gianini's mother, not my mother. My mother is still Helen Thermopolis because she is a fairly well known modern painter under that name, and also because she does not believe in the cult of the patriarchy) is still in curlers. She looks very surprised. This might not only be because we arrived so early, but also because no sooner had my mother entered the house than she was forced to run for the bathroom with her hand pressed over her mouth, on account of the smell of the roasting turkey. I am hoping this means that my future half-brother or -sister is a vegetarian, since the smell of meat cooking used to make my mother hungry, not nauseated. My mother had already informed me in the car on the way over from Manhattan that Mr. Gianini's parents are very old-fashioned and are used to enjoying a conventional Thanksgiving meal. She does not think they will appreciate hearing my traditional Thanksgiving speech about how the Pilgrims are guilty of committing mass genocide by giving their new Native American friends blankets filled with the smallpox virus, and that it is reprehensible that we as a country annually celebrate this rape and destruction of an entire culture. Instead, my mother said, I should discuss more neutral topics, such as the weather. I asked if it was all right if I discussed the astonishingly high rate of attendance at the Reykjavik opera house in Iceland (over 98 percent of the country's population has seen Tosca at least once). My mother sighed and said, "If you must," which I take to be a sign that she is beginning to tire of hearing about Iceland. Well, I am sorry, but I find Iceland extremely fascinating, and I will not rest until I have visited the ice hotel. 9:45 a.m.-11:45 a.m. -- I watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with Mr. Gianini Senior in what he calls the rec room. They don't have rec rooms in Manhattan. Just lobbies. Remembering my mother's warning, I refrain from repeating another one of my traditional holiday rants, that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is a gross example of American capitalism run amok. At one point during the broadcast, I catch sight of Lilly standing in the crowd outside of Office Max on Broadway and Thirty-Seventh, her videocamera clutched to her slightly squished-in face (so much like a pug) as a float carrying Miss America and William Shatner of Star Trek fame passes by. So I know Lilly is going to take care of denouncing Macy's on the next episode of her public access television show, Lilly Tells It Like It Is (every Friday night at nine, Manhattan cable channel 67). 12:00 p.m. -- Mr. Gianini Junior's sister arrives with her husband, their two kids, and the pumpkin pies. The kids, who are my age, are twins, a boy, Nathan, and a girl, Claire. I know right away Claire and I are not going to get along, because when we are introduced she looks me up and down the way the cheerleaders do in the hallway at school and goes, in a very snotty voice, "You're the one who's supposed to be a princess?" And while I am perfectly aware that at five foot nine inches tall, with no visible breasts, feet the size of snowshoes, and hair that sits in a tuft on my head like the cotton on the end of a Q-tip, I am the biggest freak in the freshman class of Albert Einstein High School for Boys (made coeducational circa 1975), I do not appreciate being reminded of it by girls who do not even bother finding out that beneath this mutant facade beats the heart of a person who is only striving, just like everybody else in this world, to find self-actualization. Not that I even care what Mr. Gianini's niece Claire thinks of me. I mean, she is wearing a pony-skin miniskirt. And it is not even imitation pony skin. She must know that a horse had to die just so she could have that skirt, but she obviously doesn't care... The Princess Diaries, Volume III: Princess in Love . Copyright © by Meg Cabot. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Princess in Love by Meg Cabot All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.