Diana’s review of The Princess Diaries, Volume X: Forever Princess by Meg Cabot.

Grade: 5 out of 5

What’s a Princess to do?

It’s Mia’s senior year, and things seem great. She aced her senior project, got accepted to her dream college(s), and has her birthday gala coming up . . . not to mention prom, graduation, and Genovia’s first-ever elections.

What’s not to love about her life? Well . . .

• Her senior project? It’s a romance novel she secretly wrote, and no one wants to publish it.
• Prince Phillipe’s campaign in the Genovian elections isn’t going well, thanks to her totally loathsome cousin René, who decided to run against him.
• Her boyfriend, J.P., is so sweet and seemingly perfect. But is he the one?
• And her first love, Michael, is back from Japan . . . and back in her life.

With Genovia’s and her own future hanging in the balance, Mia’s got some decisions to make: Which college? Which guy? How can she choose? Especially when what she decides might determine not just the next four years, but . . . forever!

I can’t believe it’s been about eight years since I picked up my first Meg Cabot book, The Princess Diaries. I was in college then, and although the protagonist was a fourteen-year-old girl from New York City who discovered she is the heir to the throne of Genovia, I found her relatable, extremely likable, funny, witty, and endearingly self-deprecating–in short, a great character who has brought me a lot of joy over the years. So it’s with bittersweetness that I write about the last book in the Princess Diaries series.

A lot has happened since readers were first introduced to Mia Thermopolis. Four years have passed since Mia first found out that she’s the Princess of Genovia. She’s now a senior in high school and about to make some of the biggest decisions of her life. If only she could stop lying!

Mia hasn’t exactly been honest to her friends about which colleges she’s been accepted to or about her 400-page senior project. She’s written a medieval historical romance*, but has revealed to her friends that it’s a paper on the history of Genovian olive oil pressing, circa 1254-1650. What does it matter, anyway, since no one wants to publish her book?

Her eighteenth birthday party, senior prom, and high school graduation are coming up. How can she even think about all that when her father’s running for prime minister of Genovia, something that wouldn’t even be happening if she had only kept her mouth shut in the first place?

To add to her stress, her ex-boyfriend Michael is back from Japan, his invention of a robotic surgical arm a huge success. Is it just Mia, or is Michael looking better than ever? Never mind that, because Mia already HAS a boyfriend–the sweet and perfect J.P. Just because her first love is back in town does NOT mean that Mia is still pining for him. She’s a mature, almost 18-year-old who’s able to be friends with her ex, even if he does smell really, really good.

To say that I had been looking forward to reading this book would be a gross understatement. I was chomping at the bit. Readers who have followed Mia on her four-year journey through high school and princess lessons won’t be disappointed with Cabot’s swan song to her popular Princess Diaries series. While we are presented with a more mature Mia, her quirky sense of humor and observations are still in tact, making this a joyously entertaining read that was difficult to put down. I desperately wanted to know if Mia and her family and friends would get their happily ever after, so I read the book with an urgency that I hadn’t experienced in a while. As someone who usually peeks at the ending of books (gasp!), I told myself that if I didn’t do it this time, I’d appreciate the ending that much more, and I was right. After I had finished the book, I re-read some of my favorite passages, something I rarely do. I, along with many other Princess Diaries fans, just don’t want to say goodbye to Mia and her friends so soon. Brava, Meg Cabot, on a wonderful conclusion to your Princess Diaries series, but it would please me to no end if you decide to revisit Mia from time to time.

*Ransom My Heart, the medieval historical romance that Mia wrote, is available for purchase. Proceeds go to Greenpeace.

This book is available by Harper Teen. You can buy a copy here.