Sexy and Funny Reads by Meg Cabot

If people have heard of the author Meg Cabot, it is generally for her young adult fiction. In particular The Princess Diaries, which were turned into several wildly popular movies starring the beautiful Anne Hathaway and the legendary Julie Andrews. However, Meg Cabot has also written many adult contemporary fiction novels aimed at her adoring young fans who have grown up. The novels generally star quirky young working female protagonists who face a series of misadventures before getting their lives on track and finding great guys.

Queen of Babble is one such novel. Ever feel like you've said too much? Lizzie Nichols feels that way all the time. Assistant manager of a vintage clothes store, she has just finished an independent study degree in fashion history when her professor shows up at her graduation party to inform her that she can't officially graduate until she turns in a major thesis paper on what she has learned from her degree. Lizzie is devastated but quickly decides she can write it while on vacation. After all, she is on her way to England to see the boyfriend she hasn't seen in three months. She met him when he burst into the girl's shower to warn any naked girls in there to get out because there was a fire. As the Resident Assistant, he guided her out of the smoke filled building and comforted her while she wore only a towel.

Continually critiquing everyone's clothes, Lizzie sets off for England. Unfortunately, she doesn't recognize her long distance boyfriend at the airport, nor does he recognize her. Revelations abound as she realizes he has no taste in clothes, lives at home with his parents, has told them she is a fatty, told his Mom she loves tomatoes (which make her throw up,) and finds out he is scamming her for everything from a blow job to money to pay his gambling debts. The final straw arrives when she realizes he is defrauding the government for welfare as well.

Realizing what a hideous mistake she has made, Lizzie sets off for France where her two best friends are working for room and board at a chateau where weddings are held. On the train, Lizzie pours out her heart to a kind and handsome stranger, telling him that she wants her blow job back. When Lizzie gets off the train though, so does the handsome stranger. It turns out he is the chateau owner's son.

Interspersed with bits of the senior thesis Lizzie is writing on the history of fashion, the fast paced narration by Lizzie buzzes along with long running sentences that use lots of ands. Cabot eschews some grammar rules in favor of compactly developing realistic characterization. The first sentence of the second paragraph even begins with the conjunction and. All of the techniques Cabot chooses help tremendously to develop the characterization of her narrator. All caps are used instead of italics for emphasis, which works well to emphasize the appropriate LOUD enthusiasm of her young female narrator. Another favorite device of mine, each chapter begins with a quote from authors and great thinkers such as Shakespeare, Margaret Mitchell, Marcel Proust and Nietzsche, on gossip and conversation.

Cabot skirts over the sex scenes with a wink and a nudge by focusing on the mental and emotional reactions of the rather inhibited narrator, never saying more than the narrator would. Lizzie is quirky, by her own admission inhibited and a bit self-conscious. She is shocked by a photo of her boyfriend's ass that he sends to her but at the same time concerned that she shouldn't be shocked.

Queen of Babble is light, fast-paced and funny. I would highly recommend it as a fun read and a sequel is already being released. My other favorite series is the Heather Wells murder mysteries with a mysterious private investigator landlord who appears to care for the main character more than he's willing to admit. I have enjoyed every story and I can't wait to see that relationship worked out.

Cabot likes to use unusual formats for her books but is careful not to let them get in the way of her storytelling. In Every Boy's Got One, for instance, she tells the story entirely through the use of e-mails to various people and PDA entries. Though unusual it does not detract from the story and one quickly gets the hang of reading who the e-mail is from and who it is to then reading the subject line as the first sentence of the entry.

If you're looking for a bit of sexy and funny romance, I highly recommend Cabot's books for adults.