Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
A Novel
Title: Queen of Babble
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Year: 2006
ISBN: 9780061750601
Rating: 3.5 stars
Meg Cabot is one of my favorite authors and prior to reading this book, I thought she never missed. I was disappointed by this book because it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi that always makes me fly through Cabot’s books.
Lizzie Nichols has a big future ahead of her. She is graduating from the University of Michigan with her self-designed major in Fashion History and she is the first child in her family to complete college instead of getting pregnant, getting married, and dropping out in their sophomore year. She is about to spend a month in London with Andrew, the man she is convinced is the love of her life and then she and Andrew will return to Ann Arbor in the fall where he will finish his graduate degree and she will continue to live at home and work at the vintage store she’s been working at while she waits for him to finish school. Eventually, when he finishes school, they will move to New York to join her best friend Shari, and Shari’s boyfriend Chaz. Shari wants Lizzie to move to New York as soon as she gets back from London because Shari and Chaz don’t have a good feeling about Andy (what every person but Lizzie calls Andrew). Andrew went back to London at the end of the school year, but Lizzie needed to stay in Ann Arbor for the summer term to finish up her language requirement she needed to actually graduate and in the time he’s been gone, she has managed to lose 30 pounds by foregoing all carbs. She is excited to show him the new her and spend a month together.
The other thing you need to know about Lizzie is that she apparently has an issue keeping things to herself. There is a running joke in the family and with Shari that she is the LBS (Lizzie Broadcasting System) and everything that crosses her mind has to come out of her mouth.
Unfortunately, at Lizzie’s graduation party, the day before she embarks on her trip to London, her advisor comes by to tell Lizzie that a 50+ page dissertation was a requirement for her degree and since Lizzie hasn’t completed that (or even started it), she still hasn’t actually graduated. Because of Lizzie’s trip, she was able to get her an extension, but the dissertation is due upon Lizzie’s return and if she doesn’t get that done, she won’t actually be a college graduate. Lizzie is shocked by this revelation because she apparently didn’t read anything about the requirements for the design-your-own-major program. Lizzie is determined to find time to write her dissertation, but in the meantime, she doesn’t want anyone else to know that she hasn’t actually graduated, which means that she has to keep the LBS under control.
Her disappointment grows when she gets off the plane at Heathrow to find that Andrew is waiting for her in a Michael Jackson-esque red leather coat, in August. She doesn’t understand how someone so wonderful can have such a poor taste in fashion. What is worse is that while Andrew told her he was living in a flat with a roommate and working at a school (one of the things Lizzie likes most about him is that he is dedicated to educating at-risk youth), he is actually living in a flat with his parents, brothers, and their dogs and doesn’t even have a bed. The school internship didn’t pay, so he decided not to apply and instead he is spending his summer working as a waiter, and after dropping her off at his parents’ apartment immediately leaves for a 12 hour shift, leaving her alone with his family who she doesn’t know. He promises that he will make it up to her after work, and the next day, he has to run an errand and then they will explore London. When Andrew’s mom makes Lizzie breakfast, it also rapidly becomes apparent that he told her Lizzie loves tomatoes when she had actually said they are her least favorite food and she can barely stomach them. She isn’t sure how to politely say that to a woman who just whipped up a variety of tomato dishes for breakfast, so she just feeds the food to the dog under the table. She also learns that Andrew had previously told his whole family that she was a “fatty,” and she agrees that she was fat before she lost the weight but is also upset by that.
When Andrew finally gets home from work, they try to get intimate in Lizzie’s makeshift bed on top of the washer and dryer. Lizzie has learned from Cosmo that having an orgasm is her own responsibility and not her partner’s, so she manages to get off, but Andrew says he can’t because there isn’t enough room. As a result, she gives him a pity blow job and only later realizes he was “using her” to get a blow job.
The next day, they venture into London and it turns out that Andrew’s errand is at the Job Centre to pick up his unemployment check. While he is talking to the clerk at the unemployment office, Lizzie butts in to ask how he is collecting unemployment if he is in fact employed as a waiter. While he is being held and investigated for unemployment fraud, he asks Lizzie for a huge loan from her savings to pay his matriculation fees at school. He says without her money, he won’t be able to return to the University of Michigan in the fall and that he had accidentally gambled away the money he had for those fees and was working so hard this summer to make it back. He says if she gives him the money, he can spend less time working and more time with her. She agrees to give him the money, but then she freaks out about the unemployment fraud and pretends to go to the bathroom, but leaves him there, goes back to the flat, gets her stuff, writes him a break up note, and heads off to France where Shari and Chaz are spending the month at the chateau of one of Chaz’s high school friends, Luke, to help with Luke’s cousin Vicky’s wedding at the chateau.
While on the train from Paris to the chateau, Lizzie struggles to find a seat that isn’t facing backward or in a smoking section. She finally finds one and it just so happens to be next to Jean-Luc, an extremely handsome and charming French American visiting his father from Houston. Jean-Luc is a sympathetic ear and listens patiently as Lizzie sobs and tells him everything that’s on her mind from still needing to do her dissertation to her break up with Andrew to the pity blow job. He confesses to her that he doesn’t love his job in finance and has always wanted to become a doctor. He has applied to some programs to get him ready for med school, but still isn’t sure he wants to do that many more years of school. When Lizzie gets off the train and realizes she doesn’t actually know where the chateau is and that Shari didn’t get any of her many messages to send someone to pick her up, Lizzie starts to panic. She starts to panic a little more when she sees Jean-Luc has also gotten off the train. She is convinced he is a serial killer and is coming to kill her. She is only slightly less upset when Jean-Luc comes clean and tells her that his name is Jean-Luc, but in America, he is just known as “Luke” (aka he’s Chaz’s friend) and that he realized that she was Shari’s friend pretty soon after meeting her. She swears him to secrecy about everything she told him and thinks they are about to kiss when Dominique, Luke’s French Canadian girlfriend in $600 flip flops pulls up to the station to pick them up.
At the chateau things are a little hectic preparing for the wedding. However, Luke’s dad gives her a tour of his beloved vineyards and Dominique further shows her true colors by telling Lizzie how she is going to get Luke to transfer to the Paris office of their finance firm and how they are going to turn the chateau into a spa where people can come to recover from plastic surgery. Dominique has also had a boob job, which takes her way down in Lizzie’s and Shari’s estimation. When Luke’s dad finds out Lizzie likes fashion and vintage clothing, he encourages Luke to take Lizzie to the chateau’s attic where there is a stockpile of vintage clothing. While looking around up there, she finds a beautiful designer white gown that has been used to wrap a gun and is covered in rust and oil stains. She is sure with the right TLC that she can salvage it.
People soon begin to arrive for the wedding. Luke’s mom, who is in the process of divorcing his dad, arrives with her sister and her niece, the bride. It is clear that these Texas society people are used to a very different lifestyle than Lizzie. They are used to getting everything and the best of it. The bride seems spoiled and dramatic, so Lizzie is happy to keep her head down and stay with Shari and Chaz. However, the next day, she accidentally lets the LBS get out of hand. Right before the rehearsal, she hears Luke’s uncle offering him a high paying job at his finance firm in Paris and then she hears Dominique tell Luke’s mom that she hopes he takes it. Luke’s mom seems a little upset at the idea of her son moving to France, but Dominique doesn’t seem to notice. Thinking it would somehow help, Lizzie tells Luke’s mom about Dominique’s plan to turn the chateau into a spa and that Luke secretly wants to stay in the US and go to medical school. Later that night, Shari confronts Lizzie because she has found out that Lizzie didn’t actually graduate and hasn’t told her. Lizzie assumes Luke must have told Shari about the dissertation after he promised not to, and Lizzie is livid. This drama is interrupted when the bride tries on her wedding dress for the first time before the rehearsal and discovers that it’s over the top and hideous. Dominique snidely talks up Lizzie’s abilities and Lizzie is called in to overhaul and fix the hand sewn dress with a little over 12 hours until the wedding. She isn’t sure she can do it, but she also doesn’t know how to refuse, so she finds herself in a pickle.
As Lizzie sits in her room crying over the dress as she works on it, Luke comes to check on her. She accuses him of telling Shari and tells him how angry she is. He is also angry that she told his secret to his mom and tells her that he didn’t tell her secret but if he did, she is being hypocritical. Shari later comes to bring her food and continue their fight and tells Lizzie that she found out by reading Lizzie’s dissertation notebook and that Luke is upset that she accused him without talking to him first. Lizzie is up all night working, but isn’t able to salvage the wedding dress, but instead, she is able to use the measurements from the original wedding dress to fix and customize the vintage gown she had found and it turns out to be a perfect wedding dress.
The day of the wedding, the bride is ecstatic with the dress, Lizzie has saved the day, and she finds out that Luke has dumped Dominique overnight. However, she knows Luke isn’t very happy with her and she owes him a huge apology. It also turns out that the gown in the attic was Luke’s mom’s wedding dress and a huge part of his parents’ pending divorce hinged on his mom thinking his dad hadn’t kept her wedding dress. When she asks Lizzie where she found the dress, thoroughly honest Lizzie somehow guesses to lie and say the dress was perfectly preserved and stored, which instantly brings Luke’s parents back together. The wedding goes off without a problem, but the reception is a different issue. The bride’s brother’s band, who just signed a record deal, are supposed to play the reception, but it is discovered that the brother and Dominique have run off together. The band is missing its lead singer, and none of the other members can sing. Lizzie once again feels called to save the day, or at least the first dance. She and Shari have been known to perform “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing at parties and family functions since they were little, and that’s a decent first dance song. So, Lizzie gets up and starts performing, hoping that Shari forgives her enough to join in. Shari does join in and eventually so does everyone else.
When the first dance is done, one of the bride’s sorority sisters takes over singing duty, just in time for Lizzie to realize Andrew has shown up at the wedding to “get her back.” Luke comes to find her and sees her talking with Andrew while Andrew begs to get back together. He punches Andrew in the teeth and Chaz has to break up the fight. They take Andrew into the kitchen for first aid and Luke walks off. Lizzie confirms to Andrew that she is done with him but acknowledges that he truly isn’t a bad guy, but that they just aren’t right for each other. He still asks her for the money again and she leaves to find Luke while Chaz gets Andrew back on the train to Paris.
Lizzie finds Luke in the wine storage barn running cold water over his swollen fist. They make up and then in the last three minutes of the book, they have a very graphic and somewhat unexpected sex scene. Lizzie has decided she is moving to New York with Shari in the fall and Luke tells her he has decided to go to NYU for one of the medical programs he has gotten into. Despite knowing each other for less than 72 hours and each of them literally just getting out of a relationship, they tell each other they love each other and then it’s happily ever after I guess?
Out of this whole book, the best scene is when Lizzie gets up to sing for the first dance. It was hilarious and heartwarming and that is the only scene that really felt like what I’d expect out of a Meg Cabot book. I don’t think that scene was enough to redeem the book as a whole, but that scene will definitely stick with me and make me giggle whenever I hear the song in the future.
The second scene that really stood out to me in this book (and not in a good way) is the sex scene at the end. Cabot writes for age groups ranging from middle grade to YA to adult. Most of her books I have read are YA and they have romance, but it’s not anything too descriptive. I have also read some of her adult romances, and I think there were some sex scenes, but they weren’t so spicy as to stand out in my mind. I just feel haunted (in a bad way) by this one. She meets Andy in a towel during a fire in her dorm and they kiss and she feels an erection through his jeans, and they have sex that one time in London, and there is the fateful blow job, and while it’s clear what is happening in those scenes, it’s pretty much all left to the reader’s imagination. And the way everyone (meaning Luke and Lizzie) carries on about that one blow job, this book didn’t feel like it was going to be sex positive or really go much into the sex scenes. But then BOOM there are body parts and mouths everywhere on top of a wine barrel in the barn. I would be lying if I said it was the most graphic sex scene I’ve ever read, but it was so much more graphic than the rest of the book that it felt like a completely different book. It was awkward and clunky and really didn’t fit.
And on the note of sex positivity, there were some other things in the book that didn’t sit right with me. I’m not sure if it’s just that the book hasn’t aged well or it’s the way Cabot was writing Lizzie, but they were major downers. One was obviously the lack of sex positivity and alongside that the way Dominique is judged for getting a breast enhancement surgery. The character was well established and unlikeable without that detail and I just don’t feel like that is something that is ok to judge and something to be used to further villainize her. Yet, that is clearly supposed to be another thing “wrong” with Dominique. At one point Lizzie also talks about being worried that she’s going to get sold into “white slavery” (she meant sex trafficking, which doesn’t only happen to white people) and ending up in a Middle Eastern sheik’s harem. That definitely seems like an issue of the book not aging well, but I felt like that was unnecessarily racially motivated and offensive. I also felt like there was a lot of fat-phobia in this book that again, didn’t really serve a greater purpose or add much to the story line.
I also had a huge issue with Andy/Andrew. It was clear to me that he was a huge asshole from the very beginning of the book. Everyone but Lizzie seems to see it and even when she starts to see it, she is still willing to overlook it until she realizes he is defrauding the UK government for unemployment money. That just felt like a very, very strange and unrealistic place to draw the line. Then in the end when she comes to her realization that he isn’t a bad person, but that they were just bad for each other, that didn’t feel warranted. He is very clearly a bad person throughout and continues to be a bad person. Their relationship is definitely toxic and that comes from both parties (Andy being who he is and Lizzie trying to imagine him into who she wants him to be), but he was a jerk the entire time and Cabot seemingly made that pretty clear. Lizzie also comes to the realization that he truly is an Andy and not an Andrew, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but then I saw this TikTok right after finishing the book, so I guess being an Andy is a thing.
I also had a lot of issues with Lizzie and her circumstances as well. First, is the Lizzie Broadcasting System. It kind of just seems like Lizzie is rude, nosy, and looking for attention. She seems fairly capable of keeping a secret when necessary and especially to save face on her side, but runs into trouble when she gets all up in everyone else’s business and just tells people everything without thinking. Many of the times she says something she shouldn’t, she goes out of her way to do so, so I just didn’t believe it “accidentally happens.” I think in order for that to be believable, it would have needed to be developed more throughout the entire book. Every chapter also starts out with a historical quote, most of which pertain to gossip. It doesn’t seem like what Lizzie is doing is gossip per say either, so that added to my confusion.
I’m also not sure how she could make it all the way through college without her advisor asking about her dissertation. My college didn’t require them, so I didn’t have to write one, but my understanding is that it’s a long-term process with required check-ins with an advisor throughout. It just doesn’t seem possible that she’d make it through 4 years and then a summer session without it ever coming up. At the end of the book, she is worried about not being able to finish the dissertation and therefore not graduating. Shari says something like, “that’s ok because you never liked school, what you really love is fashion” and the consensus among the friends seems to be that she will be fine if she never finishes her degree. There are excerpts from the dissertation between chapters, (which is maybe supposed to be proof that she actually ends up finishing it?) but they are so laughably bad and unacademic that I’m kind of surprised the University of Michigan didn’t sue for implying that that level of academic work would be acceptable there. So the book never really clarifies what will happen with the dissertation and I didn’t leave the book feeling too optimistic about it. Which begged the question, why make this such a seemingly huge issue in the book and then minimize it at every turn. It was such a side note that I’m really not sure why it was included at all and the book could have easily been written without it. Yet, it’s talked about A LOT.
This book left me with way more questions than answers and in my opinion lacked the typical Meg Cabot spark that I know and love. This is actually book one of a three book series, so clearly not everyone felt the same way that I did, but for me, this book just wasn’t a winner. I hope that some of these questions and unresolved issues are addressed in the other two books, but I don’t think I’m going to read them to find out.