I enjoyed the books decently enough when I read the first 4 of them. I found parts of it funny, though I already noticed a heavy amount of very obvious Tropes beginning to be played out. But I felt like this was simply because it started off as a series aimed for teenagers-to-young-adults, so it would make sense for things to be a bit more transparent.
And after getting older only by a year or two, I began to lose my patience with Mia very quickly. A lot of her 'problems' are nothing but her wallowing in Wangst, and even complaining about things that I felt shouldn't be something she should be worrying about. Like her insistence that there is something very wrong with her because she didn't already have a boyfriend at the age of 14!
I read the later books, but I saw that Mia had not improved, even when gaining more responsibility in her school as part of the council and similar. I have enjoyed Meg Cabot's books before, despite finding even some of her adult heroines to have issues that really shouldn't be such huge issues, but Mia made me lose my patience with her. Over and over. There is not a single, tolerable person in the books by the end of the series. Except for Fat Louie... and Grandmère. It certainly says something about your protagonist, if the character you are supposed to not like is the one you enjoy the most.
The only people I would suggest this book series to is very young teenagers, who may still have... 'idealistic' views... just like Mia has.
Literature I Could No Longer Tolerate The Books
I enjoyed the books decently enough when I read the first 4 of them. I found parts of it funny, though I already noticed a heavy amount of very obvious Tropes beginning to be played out. But I felt like this was simply because it started off as a series aimed for teenagers-to-young-adults, so it would make sense for things to be a bit more transparent.
And after getting older only by a year or two, I began to lose my patience with Mia very quickly. A lot of her 'problems' are nothing but her wallowing in Wangst, and even complaining about things that I felt shouldn't be something she should be worrying about. Like her insistence that there is something very wrong with her because she didn't already have a boyfriend at the age of 14!
I read the later books, but I saw that Mia had not improved, even when gaining more responsibility in her school as part of the council and similar. I have enjoyed Meg Cabot's books before, despite finding even some of her adult heroines to have issues that really shouldn't be such huge issues, but Mia made me lose my patience with her. Over and over. There is not a single, tolerable person in the books by the end of the series. Except for Fat Louie... and Grandmère. It certainly says something about your protagonist, if the character you are supposed to not like is the one you enjoy the most.
The only people I would suggest this book series to is very young teenagers, who may still have... 'idealistic' views... just like Mia has.