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| Image courtesy of www.debcaletti.com |
Deb Caletti
2009
The Summary
Quinn Hunt has spent her life making "Good Choices" and learning how to shield herself from heartbreak, learning from the failed attempts at love by her mother, grandmother, and closest friends. More importantly, Quinn has her father back in her life - and she has every intention of being the good daughter everyone anticipates.
But, when Quinn discovers that her father has been keeping secrets - stealing hearts and taking mementos from his former flames - she sets out on a karmic quest with her younger sister and a half-sister she never knew existed to set things right and face the sometimes damaged, sometimes incredible women her father has forgotten.
The Good
The Secret Life of Prince Charming is enjoyable and simultaneously gratifying for its precise pacing, endearing characters, and intriguing plot. Wrapped around a familiar coming-of-age story, Deb Caletti's novel combines familiar elements with a unique narrator and rousing story of adventure that both resonates on a psychological level and appeals to the emotional.
More importantly, the narrator which Caletti fashions out of Quinn makes the story all the more addictive. Quinn lays her life bare and tells her tale, word-for-word, encapsulating not just another simple journey but her own desperate search to find a place of belonging and reflecting on her internal growth as daughter, as a sister, and as a friend.
In short, it's a nice story to read. Sometimes, it borders on heartbreaking, but, more often, it's so well rendered and so completely endearing as to keep you glued to the pages. It's fun, and it's temptingly real and exciting.
The Bad
You will find some mild language in Caletti's novel and a sprinkling of teenage angst, as well as a hint of sexual innuendo. But, strictly speaking, such things are relatively minimal and not particularly invasive.
The Ugly
For Quinn's father, her actions will be considered a betrayal - a betrayal for which he may never forgive her, a betrayal through which she may never perceive him in the same way.
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