Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, delivers another charmer with Queen of Babble. The story begins in Ann Arbor, MI, where Lizzie is celebrating her graduation from the University of Michigan. During the festivities, her advisor pulls her aside and breaks the news that she hasn’t in fact graduated – that she still needs to complete a 50-page thesis. Lizzie is stunned but keeps her plans to travel to England two days later to stay with her boyfriend for the summer.
More bad news awaits her in England. Lizzie, a fashion history major, discovers that her boyfriend Andrew is a horrendous dresser. While waiting for Andrew to pick her up at the airport, she spots a man about her age wearing a red leather Michael Jackson-in-the-80s-style jacket, complete with epaulets. Lizzie avoids his glances and instead mills around, waiting for her boyfriend. But after having Andrew paged, she is horrified to find out that it's Andrew in the Michael Jackson jacket.
Then they are approached by an older man wearing a navy blue windbreaker and corduroy pants (in August), whom Lizzie learns is Andrew’s father. She figures that most Europeans don’t own cars, so Mr. Marshall must be there to give them a ride. Wrong again. He is there to give them a ride – but to his own house, where Andrew is currently living.
Andrew finds out that Lizzie is traveling with a couple thousand dollars, he asks her to loan him $500 for tuition fees, so that he can return to the university in the fall. She agrees. Things go from bad to worse when Lizzie finds out that Andrew’s waitering job pays him under the table and he is getting unemployment benefits. She agrees, but splits when they are at the Job Centre and she accidentally tells them that Andrew has a job already. He begs her to lie for him, but instead she takes off and makes her way to France, where her roommate and her boyfriend are staying in a chateau for the summer.
On her way to France, Lizzie meets the perfect man, who turns out to already have the perfect girlfriend, or so it seems. Lizzie spills her guts to him over many occasions and, for once in her life, putting her foot in her mouth turns out to be the best thing she could do.
While the plot to this book might be somewhat predictable, readers desiring a fun summer read will be pleased with Queen of Babble. The writing is intelligent and clever, and Lizzie is a charmingly simple character whom readers can relate to as a girlfriend. Her stream of consciousness narrating is funny and engaging, and will keep the pages turning to the end.
The Queen of Babble returns with a new installment, Queen of Babble in the Big City. Click here for a review.
Cabot, Meg
Queen of Babble
New York: William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, May 23, 2006
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