Publication: June 2nd 2015 by William Morrow & Company
Source: Purchased
Goodreads Summary: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first adult installment, which follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding—but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare.
For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community center, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements. Mia's gorgeous longtime boyfriend Michael managed to clear both their schedules just long enough for an exotic (and very private) Caribbean island interlude where he popped the question! Of course Mia didn't need to consult her diary to know that her answer was a royal oui.
But now Mia has a scandal of majestic proportions to contend with: Her grandmother's leaked "fake" wedding plans to the press that could cause even normally calm Michael to become a runaway groom. Worse, a scheming politico is trying to force Mia's father from the throne, all because of a royal secret that could leave Genovia without a monarch. Can Mia prove to everyone—especially herself—that she's not only ready to wed, but ready to rule as well?
Goodreads Page
My Thoughts:
*For a more detailed review, read my review on Goodreads. Goodreads has spoiler tags which I'm not able to add here and therefore had to shorten this review to keep it spoiler free*
This book. Where do I even start? It's a mess. And I'm disappointed.
I was really surprised to hear that Meg Cabot was writing another Princess Diaries book. I've read every single book, even the in between quarter and half volumes, and I thought that book 10 adequately wrapped up the series and I was satisfied with it. I didn't think there needed to be another book. But, of course, after reading all of the others and loving the series, I wanted to read this one too. And I kind of wish I didn't.
I liked that Cabot kept true to her characterization of everybody. Mia still writes in her "voice" and her familiar style and worries about things she worried about in the first 10 books. She does have a bit more of a mature style to her but she is still Mia. It was nice to see pretty much every single character from the previous books had a part even though it was kind of strange that Mia still spoke to every single person she was friends with in high school and has seemingly made no new friends even through her college terms. There were a few plot twists that surprised me about some of the characters.
And then there's the plot. There was just TOO MANY plot lines. I realize that writing a book that takes place 8 years (I think) after the last book is challenging. Trying to update where everybody is in their life while also developing a plotline for the current time period would be difficult by itself. But instead, Cabot has FOUR maybe even five (approximately, depends on how you count them) plot lines almost all happening at once. There was too much going on with very little details or development and the writing was a bit monotonous honestly. The first line of nearly every entry of the last half of the book is something along the lines of: "That didn't go the way I expected" and/or "I've ruined this person's/my life."
Besides the plot line issue, I was disappointed by the lack of details given. We get no glimpses at what college was like for Mia other than to state she had roommates and where she attended. We don't get any details about the actual royal wedding. Nothing about the actual planning (we're given a few pages about it which are entirely planned out by her grandmother/PR people but were never set in stone) or how she felt leading up to the wedding, just a few sentences stating where and how many guests there were along with a couple food items they chose. I mean, it did make sense why Mia didn't write anything about it, but I still wish that the title of the book actually had some spotlight time, you know?
Overall, I did enjoy the book and was glad to read more about Mia and Michael, but I think there was just too much going on to fully develop the plot points introduced. I can only assume with how the book ended that Cabot plans to continue on to a Princess Diaries 12 book. If that's so, I hope it's a lot less chaotic than this one. Also, I can only assume that Cabot will be writing a spin-off series about the new character introduced in this book. For which I'm sure was one of the major reasons this book was even written.
Likes: Characterization remained consistent. We get to see nearly every character again and be updated on their lives. Grandmere. Mia and Michael's relationship. The new character introduced.
Dislikes: TOO MANY PLOT POINTS. Underdeveloped plot. J.P. I mean really? Why was he included again? No details/record of events about the actual TITLE of the book. It's called Royal Wedding with no actual record of a wedding. Thanks, Cabot. Also, I wish they'd been able to make this cover consistent with the previous covers. I think it's probably because it's a different publisher but it's kind of annoying that I now have 3 different designs for the same series since I even have the original pink flowery looking books before they decided to redo them at book 9.
Overall:
Recommend? Yes.
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