Princess Mia is the ninth in Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series. I have to admit, I haven’t read them all. I’ve read all Meg’s other YA books, but after the first couple of Princess Diaries books (which I did enjoy), the titles and covers were too similar and I couldn’t keep track of them and remember which ones I’d read, so I kind of just gave up. I still don’t know which ones I’ve read. Maybe I have read them all. I don’t think I’ve read the one where Mia runs for class president, though. Hmm. I’m really not entirely sure. I know the basic timeline of events, though, and am familiar with the characters, and that’s all that’s really necessary to reading this book (although it would have helped to have read the eighth before–they are so connected that I went ahead and read it anyway after finishing this one!).

In Princess Mia, Mia is struggling with the loss of her boyfriend, Michael. (He didn’t die; she broke up with him over something kind of stupid and then he moved to Japan to make a robotic surgery thingy to save people). She might have been able to function through that, except that then she immediately lost her best friend, Lilly, because Lilly thought she kissed her recent ex-boyfriend, J.P. (which, Mia did, kind of, but only accidentally, and they’re just friends). Now, she doesn’t have either of the Moscovitzes, her boyfriend or her best friend, and that’s just too much for a girl to handle! Add that to the fact that she’s expected to give a speech to two thousand of the world’s most elite businesswomen, and, yeah, she’s a little stressed. What’s a princess to do?

I really enjoyed this book. I literally laughed out loud at some parts; Mia’s distinctive voice just makes everything so hilarious, even if she didn’t get into so many mishaps. It’s certainly not all light-hearted fun, though; Mia’s dealing with some serious sadness in this book. Meg Cabot shows herself in this book to be very good at creating great characters, and she really does, after nine books (plus those weird little half-books or whatever they’re called that come in between some of the main books) about them, know this cast of characters very well (and so does the reader).

I think I may very well go back and read the rest of the series in order; it really is that good. This book is highly recommended! It has restored my faith in Meg Cabot (a couple of her recent books were a little disappointing to me, but maybe just not my kind of books; they weren’t necessarily bad).