If you've seen the movie version, this book takes up about the first third or maybe half of the movie (from what I remember), but don't let that fool you into thinking nothing much happens in this book.

Mia Thermopolis lives in Manhattan with her artist mother Helen, going to a private school called Albert Einstein High and spending the summers with her father and his mother at her chateau in France. She knows they're rich, but she thinks her dad is just a politician. At school she's unpopular an More...

I never got around to reading this when I was the protagonist Mia's age, and since the book and movie series became so popular, I recently decided to take a trip back to childhood and finally read this book. It was a quick read, thankfully, but I didn't find it nearly as endearing as the movie version (which is substantially different from the novel). The book seemed awfully light on plot and substance. Character development was minimal, and as a result, most of the characters (including Mia) we More...

I read the first 3 books in the series yesterday and I can't decide if I think they are clever and funny or obnoxious and pretentious. Maybe you will have a different opinion. I didn't relate much to Mia; everything she stands for annoys the heck out of stuff I stand for. But she is still kinda funny anyway.

~The Princess Diaries~ By: Meg Cabot
Mia Thermopolis thinks there is nothing worse than being an unpopular, flat-chested freshman, living in New York City with her single mother. Boy, is she off...
First her mom annouces that she's dating Mia's Algebra teacher,who's class Mia is failing. Then her European father annouces that he's the prince of a small country, called Genovia, and that she is not just Mia Thermopolis, but Amelia Migonette Grimaldi Thermoplis Renaldo, princess of Genovia! No jo More...

Meet Mia Thermopolis. 14 years. Frustrated with teen-life and its innumerable woes. Namely:
1> She has feet like skis, is the tallest girl in her class and is flatter than a surf-board.
2> Her mouse-brown/dishwater-blonde hair is “triangular” in shape and has a rampant life of it’s own.
3> She is a child out of wedlock and is being brought up by her mother, the scatter-brained, avant-garde artist Helen Thermapolis. Who by-the-way is dating her algebra professor, Mr.G.
4> She regularly ge More...

This is a great book! I just started reading because I saw the movie, but this book is fantastic! It is a diary of a 14-year-old girl named Mia in New York City who thinks she is complete freak and invisible. She is given a hard time at school and even from her closest friend. But one day her dad takes her out to eat and tells her she is heir to the royal throne of a made-up, tiny European country called Genovia. Her life then takes off when everyone starts treating her different even though she More...

Anne Hathaway does a MARVELOUS job narrating this audiobook. Seriously, she had me laughing out loud. It's a funny story to begin with - Mia's trials and tribulations when, at 14, she finds out she's the princess of a wealthy European nation called Genovia. Mia's a relatable and hilariously flawed character with a great heart. Anne Hathaway's reading adds to the humor and gives the listener a great connection with the story. Highly recommended.

Full review on my blog: http://www.abbythelibrarian More...

This is a really good book to start off the series!

"Mia cree que su vida no puede ir peor: es altísima, plana, va a la clase de los novatos, suspende álgebra, su madre sale con su profesor… y ahora, además, tiene que escribir un diario porque se supone que necesita desahogarse de algún modo y contar sus sentimientos. Mala suerte para ella, que cree que escribir un diario la hace aún más pringada, pero buena para nosotros, que podemos leerlo y reírnos de su peculiar modo de ver la vida. Lo cierto es que Mia parece tener una imaginación hiperactiv More...

O.k., this review is about Meg Cabot's books more than it is about The Princess Diaries. I just listened to The Princess Diaries on a road trip and thought it was way funnier than the movie (it was read by Anne Hathaway who did an awesome job). I've also been reading a few other Meg Cabot books over the last few months and I think she has a tallent for writing for teens and for making her characters say and do pretty funny things. But, I have big issues how many of her main characters seem to ha More...

I admit it, I saw the movie first. And I'm a fan. I like Anne Hathaway and I'm a sucker for Julie Andrews (she's just fabulous). It's a great little feel good movie that I watch whenever I catch it. That being said it did throw me for a little loop when I started reading the book. There are subtle changes, which are to be expected with location costs and such.

Mia is a great character. She's smart and witty and doesn't really realize she's smart and witty. She's also compassionate and has integr More...

I really like this book. I read it while I was in middle school, and enjoyed it then, but I had forgotten a lot about it since. The story (if you don't already know) is about a girl suddenly finding out she's a princess, and her endeavors to find ways to hide it from her peers and accept it in herself. Her relationships with those around her and how she responds to changes in her life is interesting to look at - she's an average freshman girl, struggling with algebra, crushing on the cute senior More...

I had seen the movie so I figured that I had a good idea of what the story was about but this was something I wasn't expecting.

The book was different from the movie. Mia, the main character, wasn't as dorky and foolish as I had seen her in the movie. She was a better person in the book then she was in the movie and the best friend was nowhere near as obnoxious as she was in the movie.She was still into her television show like in the movie, and her brother was a lot cooler in this then the movie More...

The Princess Diaries is a contemporary realistic fiction novel. It is recommended for teenagers that are fourteen and up. I gave this book 5 stars because of how great the story is. It combines what could happen, and what so many girls want to happen to them. Girls are told they are princesses by their parents from a very young age. Well this book not only agrees with this concept, but it takes it one step further. A dorky high school teenager finds out her deceased father was a ruler of a count More...

I love Meg Cabot books just because they're so girly and relatable and cute :-) This one was kind of corny, they all kind of are actually but I love it. I'm in love with love stories and stories about love and romance and flirting and this is totally one of those books. It doesn't feel like you're reading a book, it feels more like you're going through a girl's secret diary that you found under her pillow, unlocked and went through. It's so fun, so many parts just make me laugh because she's sos More...

Although I watched the movie "The Princess Diaries" ages ago, I never got the chance to read the book until recently. I didn't expect myself to be amazed with the story because I watched the movie several times and I knew how the plot progressed. However, I was very wrong. The book had completely different conflicts and spontaneous events that made it super fun to read without any spoilers from watching the movie. The story began as any young adult novel would, a typical girl trying to survive h More...

I read this book prior to working through it with an 11 year old pupil. The cover and blurb led me to believe that it was innocent and suitable. I was a bit shocked to discover references to sex and perverts in a book that appears so innocent, pink and fluffy. However, it would be a good read for older teenagers as it raises very interesting questions about how and why we choose our friends and how to deal with some of the less pleasant characters in life. The "princess" doesn't want to be. She More...

Betty Xiong

There was one book I have read called Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. The genre of this book is drama. The genre is drama because the main character is really dramatic and a lot of love connections. The setting is in modern days and took place somewhere in England. The protagonist is Mia Thermopolis.

The main conflict was that her life totally changed when she found out that’s she was a princess. The conflict did keep the book exciting but there were a lot more other conflicts that she More...

Considering this is one of the rare cases where I saw the movie before reading the book, the book was not ruined for me. The two things, while having some similarities, really are quite different.
Things I enjoyed about the book:
I love that Mia drops Star Trek references.
I love that she stands up for herself, and knows when a line gets crossed. While she is not the strongest female character I've ever met, she is kind and exhibits responsibility. And while there is definitely a "ugly duckling" t More...

Fun book, different from the movie (no surprise here, but had to be stated.) Mia Thermopolis discovers that she is actually Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, Princess of Genovia, a fact which her divorced parents had decided to keep from her as the chances she would actually have to ascend the throne were slim to none. Of course there are complications and now she must fill the role of princess, a role she never even knew could be waiting for her in the future. Being a teenager is More...

i remember when i first read this book, i re-read it over and over. at first,i thought it was slow and boring. but when i read it for the second time, i understood more and thought it was really funny and hilarious. i wished my life is like mia's .she has a hilarious grandmother and a best friend who has IQ higher than Eistein.i could see the whole point of this novel is humor. it makes people laugh and crave for more humor after reading it. good thing the whole series has 10 books not including More...

Originally posted at http://shelversanon.blogspot.com

Okay, time for another semi-embarrassing confession. I don't have a single Meg Cabot book on my shelf. I watched The Princess Diariesmovie and adored it (Anne Hathaway! Julie Andrews! That guy who plays Joe!), but the book? I tried to read it once but can only remember being mortified to the depth of my nerdy little soul at the mention of the dad's cancer-riddled testicles. (Yeah, the dad doesn't die in the books. Color me surprised.)

But a mon More...

The main problem in this book: 9th grader Mia Thermopolis is troubled after finding out that she is a princess. The setting in this book is New York City. The Protagonist is Mia, a dirty blonde who is pretty un-confident. The Antagonist in this book is Lana, a cheerleader who calls Mia a "freak".
In this book, Mia, a regular freshman at Albert Einstein High school, finds out from her dad that she is Princess of Ginovia. Un-like most girls who would love to be a princess, this news makes Mia ve More...

I loved this book! It seemed to have been truly written by fourteen year old Mia. Amilia would never view herself as a princess, not in a million years. She is five foot nine, flat chested, has grey eyes and her hair color is not even really a color; and is highly insecure with all of this(I always personally thought she sounded pretty, almost model like). Learning she is a princess is the worst thing she could ever imagine. How can a flat chested, vegan, combat boot wearing, boy-friend less, un More...

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Mia is just an ordinary freshman. She's got one best friend, who's rude to her sometimes, she's vegetarian, she's smitten by Josh, the most popular boy at school, and she's flunking algebra. So when Mia's dad reveals that she's the princess of Genovia, she shocked, and horrified. Things only get worse when her grandma insists she do princess lessons everyday, and the media gets a hold of her princess identity, making school a nightmare. Soon she's escorted to cl More...

I listened to the audio version of this book. Mia is your average awkward high schooler, with a couple close friends who are just as quirky and a crush on a boy who probably doesn’t know her name. Then she finds out she is the only heir to the Genovian crown, and her life is immediately changed. This was a quick and easy fun listening experience. Some of it is a little hard to grasp since most of it comes straight out of Mia’s journal, which might be better to read than to listen to. But I still More...

This series is not particularly well-written, and sometimes Mia just INFURIATES me with her obliviousness, but reading them just puts me in a good mood. First of all, I love the characters. Mia's grandmother (or Grandmere), the dowager princess of Genovia, is fucking batshit insane. She's constantly getting plastic surgery, she shaves off her eyebrows and draws them back on, and she has a poodle that eats its own fur and has digestion problems. Mia's father, the prince of Genovia, is a total wom More...

**This review was originally posted at life-ducks.blogspot.com**

Surely, we've all seen the two Disney Princess Diaries movies starring Anne Hathaway, yes? I love these movies, and pretty much anything starring Anne Hathaway, so at my best friend's insisting, I decided to read the first book in the series by Meg Cabot. Man, was I in for a surprise? My best friend had told me that the movies and books were different, but I hadn't foreseen another Ella Enchanted (yes, another Anne Hathaway movie) s More...

Freshman, five-foot-nine and flat-chested: that's Mia Thermapolis.

New York living with her artisan mother and her cat, Fat Louie who has sock digestive tendencies, fourteen-year-old Mia is your typical teen. Only she is completely flunking Algebra while her mom dates her teacher. Her bestfriend Lily hates her and she's the only one in Albert Einstein High School who hadn't been asked out for once.

When her life could not get any more pathetic came the life-defining news: she is only heir to the t More...

My younger daughter recently found this book in my older daughter's room, and asked to read it. My older daughter, who is away at college, said that yes, her sister could read her book, provided she put it back when she was finished. That says something. A girl who is practically grown up, and who should have long outgrown her princess phase, still counts The Princess Diaries as a cherished possession. She has given away bags full of other books she read and didn't consider worth keeping. Like e More...