Mini-Reviews: Murder Houses and Princess Diaries

 I've been in a bit of a slump lately, mostly due to general malaise I'm blaming on work (this is my "busy season") than on the actual books I'm trying to read, but generally ignoring. However, I have managed to finish two newer releases in recent memory, one of which was pretty good and the other that scratched a nostalgia itch but not much else.

My Adult & Teen Fiction Selector at the office told me about We'll Never Tell by Wendy Heard, and I immediately put myself on the wait list for it.  Four teenagers who attend Hollywood High are on the cusp of graduation and decide to host one last show for their secret YouTube channel that explores abandoned places around Los Angeles.  Their latest target? The infamous Valentini Murder House where a murder/suicide in the 1970s left a beautiful young actress and her husband dead.  The house has remained untouched for 50 years and naturally on the night they break in, things go horribly wrong.

Loosely based on the Los Feliz Murder House (man, LA can be creepy...), this was a good, solid YA suspense novel with some excellent world building.  I felt like Heard really nailed the LA vibe, part privilege and part everybody outside looking in on said privilege.  It did make me feel old (because I am) when the 1970s was referred to in "golden age" language (excuse me while I blow away like dust...) and the teen angst and Big Teenage Feelings got a little too precious for me at the end - but again, older than dirt, not target audience.  Well worth the time and the library check-out, I'd pick up another book by Heard.

Final Grade = B

I started on the Princess Diaries series right around the time they were published (way back in 2000) and, spoiler alert, I wasn't even the target audience back then. But I fell for this YA series as told from the perspective a Mia Thermopolis, an awkward New York City teen who discovers she's the princess of the fictional kingdom of Genovia. These were, and always will be, brain candy books for me. Picture Wendy riding on the back of a unicorn farting rainbows and eating cupcakes (with sprinkles) as I streak across the sky - and well, you'll get the idea. During the hellscape that was 2020, Meg Cabot apparently published a series of blog posts from Mia's "quarantine diary" that ended up being a big enough hit that her publisher told her to run with it, and a full-length The Quarantine Princess Diaries was born.

Look, right out of the gate, I'm telling you this is for fans only.  If you know nothing about this series (and the movies do NOT count), just keep walking. Did it deliver what I wanted?  Well, sort of.  As a brain candy read it delivered. It's fluffy and there are rainbow farting unicorns as far as the eye can see.  The problem?  While we've all aged, including supposedly Mia, but she doesn't really read or sound like a woman in her 30s.  Grandmere is a full-blown caricature in this book, and to be honest?  It all felt too soon to me to wring out some laughs about the last three years.  Some of that's on me.  I haven't blogged about what my job and life were like 2020-2021 because nobody wants to read that kind of emotional leakage, but even this suck-it-up, hardworking, Midwestern work ethic gal had some struggles that I still haven't fully unpacked. 

I mean, this is fine?  That's what I've got folks. Also, I read an ARC and dear Lord I hope somebody cleaned it up before final printing went out because spelling celebrity names is a pretty low bar to not clear (Timothy Olyphant not Timothy Oliphant. Rene Russo not Rene Rousseau. Also Mia totally screws the pooch on the ending to the Dustin Hoffman film, Outbreak.  He finds the dang monkey in a suburban back yard Mia!)

Final Grade = C