Dork Diaries 14: Tales from a Not So Best Friend Forever by Rachel Renee Russell

 

Title: Dork Diaries 14: Tales from a Not So Best Friend Forever

Author: Rachel Renee Russell

Read by:  Jenni Barber

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 53 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

 My ten-year-old daughter Penelope is a fan of the Dork Diaries series.  We enjoy reading the novels and listening to the audiobooks together.  We need to catch up with the books in the middle of this series!

 Dork Diaries 14:  Tales from a Not So Best Friend Forever finds our heroine Nikki and her friends spending the summer as the opening act for the world famous Bad Boyz boy band.  Things look perfect for Nikki and her friends until her enemy Mackenzie manipulates her way into an intern position working with social media for the tour.  Even worse, Mackenzie is her roommate and keeps trying to blackmail Nikki to get herself on stage.  Will Nikki survive the summer, and get to know the Bad Boyz?

 Jenni Barber was a great narrator and really seemed to inhabit Nikki’s character.  Penelope was very engaged in the plot and especially thought the quizzes that were sprinkled throughout the book on “which bad boy is for you” were funny.  I remember liking those types of quizzes as a kid.  We both were very amused by the humor in the book.  Penelope especially loved the Bad Boyz and Nikki’s interactions with them.

 Overall, Dork Diaries 14 was a funny audiobook and kept me and my ten-year old daughter entertained on our car trips.  It prompted fun discussions.  Penelope really wants this to become a Netflix series!

Dork Diaries #2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl by Rachel Renee Russell

My nine-year-old daughter Penelope loves reading the Dork Diaries novels. They are the story of an awkward middle school girl named Nikki who is picked on by the cool girls and must find her way out of mischief.  The book is written like a diary and has pictures throughout. Nikki is a budding artist and illustrates her diary.

In Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl, Nikki finds herself in a mess as she is the people pleaser and she schedules herself to be in three places at once the evening of the school Halloween party.  Hilarity ensues.  Mean girl Mackenzie continues to be a villain, and Nikki is asked to the dance by her crush Brandon.  I like that Nikki learned her lesson that she should have just been honest with everyone up front.  I also like that while Nikki does not think much of herself, she is a good person that likes to help kids and is good to her friends.  

Overall, Dork Diaries #2:  Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl was a light entertaining novel that was good for some laughs.  It was a good book to read with Penelope with all the stresses of COVID going on right now.  

Book Source:  I believe I purchased this from Amazon.com for Penelope’s birthday.

Dork Diaries 13: Tales from a Not So Happy Birthday by Rachel Renee Russell

Title: Dork Diaries 13: Tales from a Not So Happy Birthday

Author: Rachel Renee Russell

Read by:  Jenni Barber

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 42 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

My eight-year-old daughter Penelope is a fan of the Dork Diaries.  They are a bit above her on reading level, but we enjoy reading them together.  We have finished the first novel, and are working on the second, but I jumped at the chance to review number thirteen.  Penelope was annoyed to be skipping ahead, but she enjoyed listening to the audiobook whenever we had a trip in the car. My ten-year-old son may have enjoyed listening to it as well when he was on short trips with us, although he would denied it if asked.

Dork Diaries 13:  Tales from a Not So Happy Birthday finds our heroine Nikki trying to plan her epic birthday party with her best friends Chloe and Zoey.  A series of unfortunate events seems to plague the trio during their party planning including realizing that their expectations does not meet Nikki’s family’s budget for the event.  They are able to work through these problems with the unexpected help of Nikki’s little sister, Brianna.  Nikki also tries to figure out how to make things work with her boyfriend Brandon for the summer with the two of them spending time in different places.  Will Nikki’s birthday be a blast or a bust?

Jenni Barber was a great narrator and really seemed to inhabit Nikki’s character.  Penelope was very engaged in the plot and wanted to know whether Nikki was going to be able to have her party or not.  We both were very amused by the humor in the book.  Penelope especially loved the light romance between Brandon and Nikki.

Overall, Dork Diaries 13 was a funny audiobook and kept me and my eight-year old daughter entertained on our car trips.  It was fun to discuss the book with her after we got done listening to it.

Dork Diaries: Tales from a NOT-SO-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell

Penelope received this book this summer and was enthralled with it.  She read it while we were camping and then her brother Daniel may have also read it was well.  Penelope and I then read it together this fall.

Dork Diaries is a story told diary style with graphics similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  This time, the protagonist a girl named Nikki J. Maxwell.  She is dealing with moving to a new school, making new friends, and making an enemy, the mean popular girl Mackenzie.  There are plenty of embarrassing and funny stories along her journey in this book.  She competes in a major art contest against Mackenzie.  Will she win the art contest and will the cute school paper photographer, Brandon, notice her?

Penelope really liked the graphics and the story. She was particularly concerned about Nikki getting into and out of embarrassing situations and didn’t like the mean girl.  For me it was positive for Penelope to note what is mean and how not to be like a mean girl.  I didn’t like how it talked about clothing and where it is not cool to buy clothes . . . which I think include the stores I buy Penelope clothes at like Kohls.  Luckily this seemed to pass over Penelope and she didn’t get into the I need to have to buy my clothes from a certain mall store trend.

Overall, Dork Diaries:  Tales from a NOT-SO-Fabulous Life was very entertaining for Penelope and me to read together.  We have book number two now and will start reading it soon.  We are also listening to the audiobook for book number thirteen.