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iffer 's review for:
Princess in Pink / Project Princess
by Meg Cabot
Between me getting older and being able to relate less to Mia's acute teenager emotions about what I now can look back on and know are superficial, and this book not aging well, I didn't enjoy this. I didn't care about Mia's feelings. Her worries seemed trivial, even vaguely remembering how intense things felt in high school, especially those related to social anxiety. In 2023, Mia comes off as a shallow privileged teenager who doesn't actually deserve either of the Moscovitzes. I know that this series is supposed to be wish-fulfillment/romance in some sense, but I couldn't help wondering in this volume why Michael would ever date Mia, except that he must be secretly creepy since she seems so much less mature.
Meg Cabot's tone about social issues is probably meant to be funny, but it hits as unfunny at best, and microagressive or offensive at worst. As I said, this really didn't age well, and it makes Meg Cabot, Mia, Mia's Mother, and Lily seem like obnoxious liberal white women who think they're doing the work but are way off base. Project Princess, volume 4.5, was about Mia taking a school trip to help build a house in Appalachia, and it just made me cringe at the saviorism. The only thing that would've made it worse was if it were a Christian missionary trip to build houses for poor non-white people. Although labor rights could be an interesting issue, it felt wrong because it was used as a thin storyline, and of course, had to start with a busboy with a stereotypically Asian-sounding name who turns out to be Nepali, and the characters glibly talk about Chinese persecution of Nepalis and possibly starving families.
Meg Cabot's tone about social issues is probably meant to be funny, but it hits as unfunny at best, and microagressive or offensive at worst. As I said, this really didn't age well, and it makes Meg Cabot, Mia, Mia's Mother, and Lily seem like obnoxious liberal white women who think they're doing the work but are way off base. Project Princess, volume 4.5, was about Mia taking a school trip to help build a house in Appalachia, and it just made me cringe at the saviorism. The only thing that would've made it worse was if it were a Christian missionary trip to build houses for poor non-white people. Although labor rights could be an interesting issue, it felt wrong because it was used as a thin storyline, and of course, had to start with a busboy with a stereotypically Asian-sounding name who turns out to be Nepali, and the characters glibly talk about Chinese persecution of Nepalis and possibly starving families.