A Princess, a queen

Meg Cabot's tenth and FINAL Princess Diaries book is Forever Princess. Mia's world is in turmoil because her father has to run for Prime Minister of Genovia against a cousin who is promising the country more tourism and Applebee's. She is still on the outs with her former friend, Lilly, and not overly fond of her new friend Lana. Her grandmother is driving her crazy with plans for her 18th birthday party. She's trying to get her senior project, a really bad romance novel (which is excerpted) published. She's gotten in to all the colleges to which she supplied, but fears that this was because she is a princess, not because of any scholastic merit. She's still compulsively keeping a diary (really? She writes in restroom stalls? And this is healthy?) and stressing over her relationship with her boyfriend J.P., especially when former love Michael reappears on the scene. All more of the same, but girls who have followed this series will be glad to see what happens. Cabot can be such a clever writer; I'm glad she is done with this series so she can move on. Richard Lewis' The Demon Queen is okay, but for such a scary cover, gets off to a slow, slow start. Jesse is now in foster care in the midwest, after being declared somewhat illegal by Homeland Security-- he was apparently found on a boat as an infant, and his ethnic background is in question. He meets Honor, whose father has been killed in Bali, and gets drawn into her weird world of worshipping Rangda, the demon queen. It's neat that something other than celtic mythology is presented, but there is so much about Jesse's existence in the midwest that I didn't care much for the book. I much prefer Lewis' other book, The Killing Sea, about the aftermath of a tsunami.