Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

I feel a bit silly writing this review, particularly because the author of "Queen of Babble Gets Hitched" is the same author who wrote "The Princess Diaries." But I am setting aside my apprehension, and thus the review begins.

Meg Cabot is synonymous with Princess Mia and the juvenile literature dynasty of which she is the queen. But for those of us who have graduated from high school (and, well, who have graduated to characters who have graduated from high school), Cabot also spins tales of twenty- and thirty-somethings who try (and fail and succeed) to make sense of their often self-complicated lives. In "Queen of Babble" (the first in what is a three-story arc, so far), the reader meets Lizzie Nichols, a struggling twenty-something with no career prospects and (gasp) no love prospects either. Naturally, as she journeys to France for the wedding of a good friend, she finds love and stumbles upon something solid in the professional realm as well. But her path is fraught with self-inflicted obstacles, which predictably dissipate as the story reaches its inevitable conclusions.

"Queen of Babble Gets Hitched" does not veer off the predictable path either. From the title the reader assumes Lizzie Nichols will, indeed, get hitched, but the question becomes: to whom? From the first chapter, where the complication is dutifully described, the reader embarks on her predetermined, expected roller coaster ride. But if a reader picks up a Meg Cabot book, she is not looking to be surprised. She does not want to shocked, to be forced to drag her jaw up off the floor with every turn of the page. Readers of Meg Cabot want to consume literary empty calories, to turn off their critical thinking abilities, to indulge in something completely mindless and fun.

Basically, it's the perfect end-of-summer read. I look a stack of intellectual books, of craftily-created stories and insightful nonfiction, and this is what I choose. For today. Tomorrow I will exercise my brain, I promise. But today, I just enjoy.

Happy reading!