Meg Cabot tackles quarter-life crisis in “Queen”

“Queen of Babble in the Big City” Meg Cabot William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins… “Queen of Babble in the Big City” Meg Cabot William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers New York, N.Y.

Tackling the world of post-collegiate anxiety, pop-fiction icon Meg Cabot confronts the expectations and disappointments of 20-something women nationwide in “Queen of Babble in the Big City.”

The latest installment in the Queen of Babble series, the New York adventure pits terminal blabbermouth, Lizzie, against the forces of unemployment, homelessness and noncommittal lovers.

Lizzie, whose internal dialogue will sound unflatteringly familiar to readers, discovers that her expectations and reality fail to mesh as one dream after another falters under the Manhattan skyline. Money and romance conspire against the narrator when the all-too-realistic job market appears to be disastrous and the love of Lizzie’s life proves to be less in love than she believed.

Nevertheless, “Queen of Babble in the Big City,” laced with bright humor and buoyant perspective, is anything but a downer. Plagued as Lizzie and her companions are, the highlight of the novel is its sheer entertainment value, which ranks high for the female audience.

“Things have a way of working out, if you have the right attitude,” says Cabot of her heroine’s trials. “And I think Lizzie does.”

Cabot, author of the wildly popular teen series “The Princess Diaries,” explains that the “Queen of Babble” series was written in response to the growing phenomenon of the quarter-life crisis.

“You put so much effort into your college education only to graduate and discover there are no jobs in your field or that you’re under-qualified or over-qualified for everything you want to do,” she remarks, adding, “Lizzie herself is learning what I think many college grads are learning now.”

Cabot, having experienced her tumultuous 20s in New York, related that, “I just wanted to let my readers know that they aren’t alone and that it’s OK to fail once in a while.”

“I get tired of reading about these unrealistic women who run around in stilettos setting the world on fire,” Cabot proclaims, and Lizzie is no superhero. The author succeeds in creating a profoundly endearing character as insecure and naive as any 20-something of either gender.

Lizzie speaks with a voice that is at once flippant and stingingly accurate. Exposing the propensity for indulging in Disney-bred princess fantasies, the ease with which Lizzie falls into blissful self-delusion is a quality that both degrades and redeems her as a character.

The sincerity of Cabot’s personages compensates for “Queen of Babble in the Big City’s” lack of grand, overarching themes. It’s not quite classic literature, and it has little to offer a masculine audience unless the men are keenly interested in the embarrassing hopes of an overly sensitive woman.

However, “Queen of Babble in the Big City” is engaging, unpretentious and exciting enough to keep you hooked until the end. Its 307 pages offer the reader a rare opportunity to laugh and reevaluate the seriousness that life merits.

A shameless cliffhanger ends the novel, and the next installment, tentatively titled “Queen of Babble Gets Hitched,” is expected in summer 2008. Most likely, readers who pick up “Queen of Babble in the Big City” will find themselves hooked and wanting more.