I’m pretty sure that I will forever prefer the movies to the books whenever The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot comes up, but there is something to be said for the fact that these books are actually pretty good. As a young pre-teen, these are the sort of books you live for and with good reason. A lot of little kids want to be secret royalty. It’s one of those things that I’m certain many of us used our own imaginations to build up as some sort of ridiculous dream at at least one point of time in our lives. And really, can anyone blame us? I know I was constantly back and forth between acting out the secret princess game and the secret agent game, so there you go. It’s fun to just pretend to yourself and to have a book that basically embodies this idea is pretty fantastic.

Of course, not everything with The Princess Diaries is amazing. It’s kind of devastating to have watched the films with the wonderful Julie Andrews and then to look back at the book and realize that the grandmother Clarice was really more of a terrifying, judgemental tyrant of a grandmother than a sweethearted Queen. And I frankly don’t care much for Mia’s dad. But, all in all, I enjoy the series. And even though Chris Pine will forever be my #1, I do appreciate the ways in which the romance of the books was handled. It’s just too darn adorable.

Anyway, I reread this a few months ago and wrote out a review if you’re at all curious to check it out. And, if you’ve only seen the movies and never read the books (I very nearly just posted this as ‘if you’ve seen the books and never read the movies’–clearly I’ve had a long work day), it might be worth adding to your Goodreads TBR.

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