The Works of Meg Cabot

[footballerswife]

I've never read any of her books, but I decided to listen to the audiobook of Queen Of Babble on a long drive I had today. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it, it's so infuriating! Lizzie gets on my nerves so badly. Am I actually supposed to empathize with her?
Anyway, I was just wondering if all Cabot's books are like this, or if this is just a particularly bad one.

[PurpleBunny]

I haven't read Queen of Babble, so I wouldn't know, but I've noticed that all the protagonists I've read about so far pretty much follow the same trend: whiny, instigating young people who can't voice their feelings when its matters. Oh, and they all talk like they've stepped out of a 90's movie about valley girls. Not fun.

[crivens]

I loved The Mediator series and a few others, her last few have not been so good. Pants on Fire was terrible.

[footballerswife]

Thanks for the info, industriallegend. That sounds about like the protagonist in QOB. Doesn't look like I'll be reading (er, or listening to) any more Meg Cabot books. Yuck.

[ladyvorkosigan]

I think the Queen of Babble heroine is much more whiny than Meg Cabot's usual heroines, footballerswife, especially in the second book. Her earlier trade paperbacks, the email ones that other posters are talking about are really cute.

I just read Jinx, and it was the first Meg Cabot young adult book that disapointed me.

[piscessiren]

ladyvorkosigan said:

I just read Jinx, and it was the first Meg Cabot young adult book that disapointed me.

Oh no, I just bought this. No wonder B&N had it so cheap.

[ladyvorkosigan]

Maybe you'll like it. I thought it didn't tell the story very fluidly - I guess, because there were supposed to be surprises and twists, but it didn't work for me.

At least it was cheap, though, right?

[PurpleBunny]

Since I'm such a masochist, I have forced myself to finish the rest of the Mediator series (I was on book 2 the last time I mentioned it) and oh my god, Suze is unbearably stupid. I gave her a pass back then because I figured she would shape up later in the series, but no. She didn't. But I think the thing that annoys me most is the fact that I finished the series not liking anyone. Why is everyone so annoying? Why?

[kore]

piscessiren said:

ladyvorkosigan said:

I just read Jinx, and it was the first Meg Cabot young adult book that disapointed me.

Oh no, I just bought this. No wonder B&N had it so cheap.

It was just released. That's why it's cheap.

I finished it and while it wasn't terrible, it wasn't her best.

Try her Adult books, like "Boy Meets Girl"

Of the Young Adult books, the first few books in the Princess Diary series are good, Popular, and All American Girl (first book)

[muskratmonroe]

I have to say that the plotline of the second All American Girl book kinda shocked me. Not that I'm a prude, and I've read other young adult books with the same theme and had no problem with them, it was just unexpected from having read other YA Meg Cabot books. I wasn't expecting the end of that book at all. And since Sam, like Mia and Suze, and most of Meg Cabot's heroines, is a neurotic twit and kinda childish, I don't think she should have made the decision she did, and in the manner she did it.

The constant pop culture references are also starting to annoy the crap out of me, as is the pattern from which she creates all her main characters. I mean, Mia's a writer and a vegetarian, and Sam's an artist and a carnivore, but other than that, they aren't much different.