Review: "The Quarantine Princess Diaries" by Meg Cabot

 

The Quarantine Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
Published March 2023 via Avon
★★★

Back when I was in college—I think I've told this story on Goodreads before, but it bears repeating—a new Princess Diaries book came out. I bought it, obviously, and during a slow moment in my geology lab, I slipped it out and started reading it, furtively, under the table. Not furtively enough: "What are you reading?" asked one of my tablemates. And so I had to sheepishly drag out The Princess Diaries, Book Whichever while the table burst into (friendly) laughter. "I thought it would be Jane Austen or something!" the tablemate said.

How far we've come: I'm in my 30s now and can't be bothered to be sheepish about whatever I choose to read (and anyway...e-readers for the win). But some things haven't changed, and I knew the second I saw this book that I'd be reading it as soon as humanly possible. How could I not? One must keep up with the world news, after all, and that includes the goings-on in Genovia.

In The Quarantine Princess Diaries, Mia has settled into her role as Princess of Genovia, and everything is just ducky, from parenting her twins through their terrible twos to implementing a composting program in Genovia.

There's just one problem.

It's early 2020...and we all know what that means.

Now, Mia has grown a bit since the last book: she no longer compulsively checks the tabloids to see how she's faring in the tabloid sphere; she's relatively chill about the way she's raising her children; she understands that as a teenager she was "completely mentally unhinged" (loc. 153*). The last bit alone is a rather miraculous bit of self-awareness.

As the pandemic slides on, though, and Mia is separated from Michael (by which I mean: he is quarantining down the hall, and she sees him from the balcony at least three times a day), wine o'clock gets earlier and earlier and Mia faces pushback against border closures and mask mandates...mostly from directly within her own family.

This is a predictably fast read and also a predictably exhausting one. Grandmère is in her finest of fine forms (though, truly, I've never loved her more than when she quotes Jane Eyre), and between her and Mia's father and Mia herself, it seems a minor miracle that Genovia has yet to slide into anarchy. (This is, remember, a country with no income tax, minimal business taxes, and not a single bookstore(!), but lots of beaches and bars and yachts. I'm not sure how any public services are paid for.) Mia seems to think that as a princess—the princess—the most valuable thing she can do with her time is volunteer at a nonprofit to help the poor (please note that in Royal Wedding she claimed that poverty and unemployment were at zero percent, so either Mia is delusional or things have gotten worse since she's been in charge. Either seems possible. Although, again, a zero-percent unemployment rate isn't actually a good thing, because it indicates stagnation) rather than, say, working on policies that will help lift the poor out of poverty and/or make sure they have necessary services in the meantime—

I'll stop. (I'm worse than Mia sometimes.) I won't even go on a rant about how Michael somehow, despite having no experience with vaccines, manages to produce one that is 99.9% effective(!) and Mia doesn't so much as consider making the details available to other countries, or her claim that the police in Genovia are universally beloved. I won't.

Will I now go back and reread all of the Princess Diaries books? Well. About that I make no promises...either way. I cannot in good conscience give this anything higher than three stars, because (I say cheerfully) Mia remains completely exhausting, and kind of an idiot, but you can bet your last dollar that if there is another of these in a few years it will be going on my to-read shelf just as fast as I can update that shelf. And I'd still put it in my bag and take it to geology lab, if push came to shove.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read a review copy, so quotes may not be final.