Book Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Hello! This is Sam and you have found yourself at The Real World According To Sam, where I bring you book and movie reviews and random things that strike my fancy. Today I will be discussing a book that has been rather popular the past few years. It was made into a movie, as were a couple of its sequel novels, and was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. I have seen the movie, just read the book, so now let's talk.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Author: Jeff Kinney

Genre: Children's Epistolary

Year: 2004

Ok. I'm sure a lot of us have heard of this book by now. Published in 2007, Diary of a Wimpy Kid has humor, kids, and middle school. Besides that, it has illustrations and the pages actually look like diary, excuse me JOURNAL (sorry Greg), pages with handwriting.

Greg Heffley is the owner of this journal (he refuses to call it a diary because that is NOT what it is). This book covers a year of middle school and is all about Greg's experiences. Greg is,....pretty average I guess. I think his biggest problem is that he grew up with his brother Roderick as a role model. That's a definite recipe for disaster. Roderick loves to pull pranks on Greg, has a rock band, has been known to possess a dirty magazine, music with those Parental Advisory labels and he's just not all that intelligent to boot. Naturally, learning lessons and being tormented by Roderick, Greg isn't likely to be a stellar, over achieving student. However, Greg isn't stupid. Its pretty obvious that he can be pretty smart when he applies himself, but a lot of times he just misses the mark and a lot of times, the point. Greg has so many different mishaps during the school year. He has a falling out with his best friend (who embarrasses him constantly from his perspective and doesn't always seem to grasp what Greg is doing or really saying at times), is forced to do things he doesn't want to, and just goes through life feeling the way most kids probably do. Misunderstood.

 I enjoyed it. It was a very fast book to read, took me one night. I want to read the next books in the series and see how much Greg grows. Right now, he's got a lot to learn. Compared to Rowley, Greg sometimes seems like a pretty ungrateful kid (he'd better use that weight set his dad got him because I'm sure it was worth a pretty penny).

It is a pretty humorous book. Greg is.....full of youthful thinking to say the least. He is not exactly a responsible kid to certain extents and he thinks up a lot of those fast-result schemes that kids are known for. Lighthearted and a quick read, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a nice transition for younger readers to get into longer books. It is also a good introduction to a memoir/journalistic type of style. I give this book a Lone Star rating of ✯✯✯.

This concludes this review, see you next week!