The Secret Life of Prince Charming By: Deb Caletti- Friday Rewind

Friday Rewind is an idea I got from Before The Blog which is/was a feature hosted by YA Litwit... and is super cool! The whole idea is that we've all been reading a lot longer than we've been blogging, so why not pull out one of those old books and feature it?? It's a way to rediscover books from our past...
(I'm calling it Friday Rewind now because I don't think this feature is active anymore)

Go to YA Litwit and check it out!

My Choice This Week Is:

 

The Secret Life of Prince Charming

By: Deb Caletti

 



Why did you choose this book? I chose this book because I thought it has a good message in it.

When did you read this book? January 2012

Who would you recommend this book to? Fans of Susane Colasanti and Elizabeth Scott books.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Maybe it was wrong, or maybe impossible, but I wanted the truth to be one thing. One solid thing.

Quinn is surrounded by women who have had their hearts broken. Between her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother, Quinn hears nothing but cautionary tales. She tries to be an optimist -- after all, she's the dependable one, the girl who never makes foolish choices. But when she is abruptly and unceremoniously dumped, Quinn starts to think maybe there really are no good men.

It doesn't help that she's gingerly handling a renewed relationship with her formerly absent father. He's a little bit of a lot of things: charming, selfish, eccentric, lazy...but he's her dad, and Quinn's just happy to have him around again. Until she realizes how horribly he's treated the many women in his life, how he's stolen more than just their hearts. Determined to, for once, take action in her life, Quinn joins forces with the half sister she's never met and the little sister she'll do anything to protect. Together, they set out to right her father's wrongs...and in doing so, begin to uncover what they're really looking for: the truth.

Once again, Deb Caletti has created a motley crew of lovably flawed characters who bond over the shared experiences of fear, love, pain, and joy -- in other words, real life.

My Review:

Quinn and her sister Charlotte (Sprout) live with their mother, grandmother, and aunt.  All 3 extremely unlucky in love.  Then one weekend while visiting her dad, Quinn discovers items in his house that have women's names on them.  She contacts her 1/2 sister (Frances Lee) and they realize that these are important things that belonged to each woman their father dated/married.  They decide to go on a quest/roadtrip to give back all the stuff and see if they can understand who their dad really is.

This book wasn't life changing for me by any means, but it was a book with a good message and really nice relationships between the main characters.  All the characters were unique and quirky/funny (except Quinn, she was kind of flat).  I really liked that even though this book was about a bunch of girls realizing that men can suck sometimes, it wasn't a male bashing book.  It was just cautioning girls against the wrong kind of guys.  The message to me was that each person in a relationship should stand on their own. 

One really cool thing about this book was that it was filled with little essays from all the women.  They were all cautionary love stories and lessons they learned about who NOT to fall for.  I did love that with the loss of their father, they gained a new sister.  Barry was pretty awful and the girls deserved better!  Also I found the Quinn/Jake thing sort of adorable.  The only thing that I didn't like was that it seemed to take too long to get to the quest, which to me was what the story was really about. 

Overall:  I thought it was a really nice book.  There were no fireworks and I didn't feel like I HAD to know what was going to happen, but I enjoyed reading it.  Good characters and writing... and I think it's a good book for teens because it has such a positive message.

Add it to your To-Read List!

My Rating: