Oh, how I love this series. So funny. And this time Mia has a whole new problem. Michael is throwing a college party while his parents are away (the parents know about it though) and Mia is worried what Michael will think when he realizes she's not a Party Girl. So she shows up at the party trying to be like someone else, and makes a fool of herself.
Also, she has managed to run the student council bankrupt and has to find a way to make five thousand dollars by the time the seniors graduate.

I'm well out of my tweens and teens, but The Princess Diaries series is of one of my guilty pleasures (along with John Travolta musicals and Celine Dion). A friend of mine, who's 28 and recently married, lets me borrow her Princess Diaries books when she's finished reading them. But these books aren't fluffy, adolescent, "I wish I was a princess" books. These books are chocked full of social commentary, pop culture references, and humor. I had more than one belly laugh while reading Mia's minute-by-minute replay of her daily grind, painstakingly recorded in her "Princess" diaries.

Mia befriends a loner who was the inspiration for her short story about a boy who refused to eat corn in his chili (and it all went slippery slope from there). It just so happens that this boy's father wants to buy the manufactured island version of Genovia, the very same man-made island Grandmere has her heart set on. I definitely prefer the Julie Andrews' sweet Grandmere to the off-screen, book version, but coping with Grandmere is one of the many "princess lessons" Mia must learn.

One of my favorite things about this series is that it glorifies unpopularity. The unpopular kids are actually the cool kids, and we see life from their perspective. Mia jokes that despite being princess of a small European principality and the student body president at Albert Einstein High School, she is still one of the most unpopular girls in her sophomore class. Lilly, her outspoken best friend, is likewise lower than alpha or beta social status, but she's so funny and smart (though at times inconsiderate), that to know her is to love her. Lilly's older brother is Mia's requited love interest.

This book says that it's okay not to be A-crowd and that the A-crowd is hardly worth changing yourself in order to join or please. Unlike the horrible "Gossip Girl" books that endorse popularity at all costs (okay, I haven't actually read GG, but have seen them in bookstores and read Amazon reviews about them), these books validate the awesomeness of the peripheral and the unpopular.

The 7th book in the Princess Diaries series was just as funny and great as all the rest of Meg Cabot's books. I won't give you the play by play of the book, but basically, Mia is once again faced with many different problems. Michael thinks Mia is not much of a party girl, which she isn't, but Mia tries to prove to him she is. Of course, Grandmere is once again all up in Mia's business, this time trying to help her raise money for the senior class graduation after Mia throws the school budget on recycling bins. Also in this book, you finally find out about The-Guy-Who-Hates-It-When-They-Put-Corn-In-The-Chili, who has been barely mentioned in all the other books.

All around, the 7th Princess Diaries is awesome! you laugh all through this book, and I personally can relate to Mia's teenager experiences. If you haven't read this book, you don't know what you're missing!