We're on a roll, I guess, with the princess theme....I had to listen to a Meg Cabot story next. Although I've only seen The Princess Diaries on the TV screen, the flashbacks to it in this fourth story of Princess Mia were not too confusing.

The narrator for this audio edition (Clea Lewis) did a remarkable job capturing the youth, (humorous) ignorance, and overall character of Princess Mia. The other character's voices didn't sound too overdone, yet they were easily extinguishable. Lily's voice (her best friend) had an "artsy edge" to it, while Michael's was soft and calm, while definitely more masculine.

As I mentioned before, this (audio) book flashbacks often to the previous stories, which was good at first, but then got a little overdone. I loved how Mia was oblivious to her "true talent" and the antagonists were not too cliched or underdeveloped. Mia learns that people aren't as easy to categorize as she thought, and learned to have sympathy and even empathy for her hard-core grandmother.

Speaking of audio books, I tried out, Sleeping Freshman Never Lie earlier this year, also in audio book format. The book was highly recommended and I thought that the full cast would be interesting. Well, plainly, it stank. The main character's voice (Scott) was really annoying after a while. The other characters were either hard to distinguish from one another (his many young male friends, for instance) or equally annoying (his mother and father). The worst part of all was the way they added lullaby music to the parts when Scott was writing in his diary to his little brother (who is in vitro). The words, "ball of slime," and, "creepy alien," and other terms he uses before his brother has a name just sound idiotic on audio. However, as this was an ALA Best Books for Young Adults and recommended as hilarious by several other respected readers/friends of mine, I just had to try the print version. Results? Much, much better. The diary part wasn't nearly as annoying, the voices weren't confusing, and I really got into the story as Scott grew up during his freshman year. I still wouldn't rate this as one of my favs, but it was decently funny and the characters had some kind of depth (although the way that Wesley changed was a little unbelievable).

To broaden my horizons within the genre manga, I picked up Bleach 3: Memories in the Rain. It's the story of Ichigo, who can see ghosts. It's the anniversary of his mother's death, the description of which is not unveiled until about a third of the way through. Not having read the first two, I had to figure out that Ichigo's skill in seeing ghosts has allowed him to become a soul reaper, someone who leads the newly dead across. The story jumps back and forth between past and present, and doesn't always stick to Ichigo's point of view, so it can get a little confusing. It was difficult to figure out the characters, jumping in to the third book in this series, so I'll probably get the first to help solidify my understanding of the events in this one. Overall, not bad! Reading backwards feels normal now :)