PARTY PRINCESS: The Princess Diaries, Volume VII
Meg Cabot
HarperCollins
Fiction
ISBN-10: 0060724536
ISBN-13: 9780060724535
304 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Mia is back for her seventh big book (there are a few smaller volumes in between) and ready to party --- NOT. That is, Michael wants to have a parent-free party at the Moscovitzs' apartment, with college people. Mia would like to be cool, she really would, but the only other occasions where she's had alcohol was at state dinners with diplomats, and they were having champagne. What if Michael finds out she doesn't know how to party? Will he leave her for college girls?

At the same time, Mia's new term as student president is off to a bad start. Just because she bought the deluxe crushing recycling bins, there is now no money in the budget. This means they won't be able to rent the hall for graduation, and the senior class valedictorian is a brute bully of a girl who Mia does not want to cross.

In a moment of extreme stress, she turns to her grandmother during Princess lessons to talk about her troubles with the student budget. Grandmere's solution? Even though the students already are having a production of "Hair" for the spring musical, Grandmere writes a musical called "Braid" based on Mia's Genovian ancestors. It is filled with mistresses, blood and more. She casts Mia in the lead, announces that the play will be performed in one week, and will charge for tickets. Mia and her friends spend every waking moment acting, singing and dancing. It would have been much easier to sell candles to raise the cash, something Mia wanted to avoid at all costs!

Mia's writing career is dealt a blow when her story about "The Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn In the Chili" based on a fellow student she observed in the cafeteria is rejected by a teen magazine contest. Then the actual boy, John Paul, auditions for "Braid" and is cast in the lead opposite Mia. Lily is in the play too, but is also trying to earn student budget money by running a new student 'zine called Fat Louie's Pink Butthole. Lily plans to run the story about the Guy, but Mia doesn't want him to know that she wrote a tragic story based on him --- and she would also prefer a new title for the 'zine!

In the meantime, Mia attends the dreaded party in what she thinks are party clothes, and tries to drink beer and act like a party girl. After this spectacle, Michael will hardly talk to her. Could he really be that upset about her dancing? She didn't realize it was sexy, as everyone is saying. Or is something else bothering him?

This is a lot for a Princess to deal with, but Mia manages to hold it together as always with lots of humor and wit --- even if she doesn't realize it. Readers will enjoy the latest from the Princess of Genovia and her New York entourage.

   --- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

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