The Secret Life of Prince Charming
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Quinn teams up with the half-sister she’s never met to right their father’s wrongs in this thoughtful, funny, and layered novel by National Book Award finalist and Printz Honor medal winner Deb Caletti.
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. And 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 cast of lovably flawed characters who bond over the shared experiences of fear, love, pain, and joy—in other words, real life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a trenchant romance, NBA finalist Caletti (The Fortunes of Indigo Skye) detonates a few stereotypes about love even as her 17-year-old narrator falls head over heels for Mr. Right. Quinn, raised by a mother whose favorite lecture is "All Men Are Assholes," nevertheless feels loyal to her father, the eponymous Prince Charming whose self-centeredness harms the women he woos. She protects herself, she thinks, by making "good choices," which, she belatedly realizes, "also meant other people's choices." But when she discovers that her father has stolen objects prized by each of his lovers and wives, she determines to return them to their rightful owners; it's metaphorical as well as physical restitution. Joining up with a barely known half-sister, Quinn and her younger sister embark on a road trip; as the three meet the women injured by their father, Quinn also meets a wonderful guy, the antithesis of the supposedly safe boy she'd dated before; and everyone learns lessons in love. Interspersed throughout are monologues from the female adult characters (including Quinn's grandmother and aunt, who live with her), which add both perspective and a large dose of wit. Caletti's gifts for voice and for conjuring multidimensional personalities are at their sharpest. Ages 12 up.
