PRINCESS IN PINK:
The Princess Diaries,Volume V
Meg Cabot
HarperCollins
Fiction
ISBN: 0060096101
256 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Can a series really stay interesting through 5 1/2 books? The answer is yes --- for the Princess Diaries titles! After the short Volume 4 1/2 about Mia's spring break building houses for charity, Volume 5 returns to New York. Mia's conflicts between life as a princess with responsibilities and life as a teenager who this time wants to go to the prom are as funny as ever.

A typical prom story this isn't. Meg Cabot even makes fun of those through Mia's constant reference to movies like Pretty in Pink and other prom-obsessed references. Michael simply doesn't want to go and thinks it's dumb. But Mia wants a night of romance with him before he graduates and goes off to college while she'll be stuck for the summer in Genovia.

In the meantime, Mia's Queen Grandmother starts a royal scene at a restaurant during Mia's 15th birthday dinner and a busboy loses his job. All of New York backs him up, and soon service people in restaurants and hotels all over the city, including the one where the Queen stays, are leaving their jobs in solidarity. So she has to move in with Mia, her mother (who is nine months pregnant), and her new stepfather.

The zany plot typical of this series does not disappoint here. But it is also fun to see Mia growing like a normal teen --- she thinks about going further with her boyfriend and is now writing articles for the newspaper. Her friends are breaking up and fighting and changing as well. Mia's fans will continue to clamor for more in this series.

   --- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

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