Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Hello yall. So I realized that it's been a while since I've done a book review. I've been really super busy the past couple of weeks. I started writing a one-act and I'm writing a book too and poetry, so keeping up reading and book reviews is lacking; it's tough. I get a book I want to read, then when I have it, I don't want to read it. Most weekends I sleep. I'm trying to snap out of it, though, so here we go with some reviews.

The Secret Life of Prince Charming The Secret Life of Prince Charming is by Deb Caletti. She is also the author of Honey Baby Sweetheart, and The Fortunes of Indigo Sky, as well as some other novels, such as Stay and The Queen of Everything that I want to read. 

In this one, Quinn and her sister, Sprout/Charlotte live with their mother, their aunt Annie,and their grandmother. Every other weekend or so, they go up to see her father and his wife, Brie, with her son Malcolm. So when Brie isn't there, and their father says she's moved out, and they're getting a divorced Quinn and Sprout are devastated. Their father has a room with some rather odd objects--a bust of a woman's head made out of clay (Abigail Renfrew), a tall brightly colored mask (Jane, age 6), a red tribal mask (Olivia Thornton), a mantel clock (Elizabeth), a large and heavy painting (Joelle Giofranco)...and then a black square glass statute (Jenkins--Brie Jenkins). 

This is how Quinn discovers that her father, Barry, takes his lovers' most precious items from them. And Quinn decides that this wrong, and that she must return the items. Enlisting the help of her half-sister Frances Lee Giofranco, her crazy, carefree, wild older half-sister, and her thoughtful and brave younger sister Sprout, they go a car ride of a teenager's lifetime, their karmic quest to return the objects to their rightful owners. Along for the ride is Jake, Frances Lee's boyfriend's brother. The four of them get the stories of their father from the perspective of the women who loved him and who he hurt. Through them, Quinn is able to make her own conclusions and judgments of her father. 

I LOVED this book. It's incredibly hilarious and deep at the same time. It's hard to find a book that does that. I loved the characters--they were all equally portrayed, and we see the real depth of them. Each of the women Quinn visits, pass on wisdom to her, which we also get from journal entries and switches in perspective. Quinn gets to know all the stuff about her father--but also about Frances Lee, and her mother/mother's family. Oh, and there's Jake, but yall have to read the book to find out where that's going. The first thing that attracted me to this book was the cover, which I love, even if it really doesn't fit the book. Quinn is such a unique character; she's been hurt by her dad, yet still wants to love him and for him to love her. In the end, however, Quinn discovers a different type of family, a family of women, who have much to teach her, and fulfill who she is as a person. Learning the truth about Barry is hard, but Quinn deals with it gracefully, knowing that a person's life is so easily altered. 

Summary from Good Reads: 

"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.

For Quotes/Wisdom go here: 
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4077787

"Fathers, be good to your daughters, Daughters will love like you do, Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, So mothers be good to your daughters, too. --John Mayer