Mia is a high school freshman and the protagonist of The Princess Diaries. Mia lives in Manhattan with her mother and attends Albert Einstein High School. When the novel begins, she is in her first month of high school. Although her biggest concerns early in the book center around her mother dating her algebra teacher, Mia’s life takes a dramatic turn when she learns that she is the Princess of Genovia and the heir to a throne she doesn’t want. Through her diary entries, Mia shares her daydreams and her deepest insecurities about high school, friendship, boys, and her new title as Princess Mia.

Like many teenagers, Mia is deeply insecure about her personal appearance. Although Michael refers to Mia as a “very tall pretty girl” (280), and a journalist calls her a “statuesque beauty” (185), Mia does not recognize her own attractiveness. In fact, she complains through most of the novel that she is “five foot nine” and “flat-chested” (1). She also criticizes her “really bad hair,” which she claims, “isn’t curly or straight,” so she “ha[s] to wear it really short or […] look like a Yield sign” (45). Finally, Mia claims to have “a really big mouth [.