Book Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an illustrated journal that a character named Greg Heffley maintains, for recording his everyday experiences. Greg is a school boy who studies in seventh grade. He lives with his family which includes both of his parents, his elder brother Rodrick and his younger brother Manny. In his daily journal entries, Greg captures experiences from his life at home, at school, in his neighborhood, with his relatives and his friends. In these entries, he also shares plethora of life lessons that he learns as he approaches his adolescent years.

The book unfolds into a series of instances that Greg writes about, that are light-hearted and often, hilarious. The book is written in first person and is unputdownable due to its perfect comic timing and so many relatable scenes.

It is difficult to describe the entire book in a summarized story, because the book is penned down in a series of several little-little stories. Though, here I will describe some characters and events from the book that make up the highlights.

Greg has a best friend, whose name is Rowley. Rowley is in the same class as Greg and he lives a stone’s throw away from Greg’s house too. Unlike Greg, who is slightly mischievous and naughty, Rowley is depicted to be innocent, naïve and chucklesome. Rowley is often the target of Greg’s brainy schemes, in which Greg uses him to gain popularity and admiration from others, especially from girls. Most of the time, Greg’s cunning schemes end up backfiring at him.

Greg has a bittersweet relationship with Rowley. Sometimes he is his bestest friend whereas other times, when Rowley becomes the center of others’ attention, Greg despises him and feels jealous. Each time he gets into fight with Rowley, he has a back-up friend, a boy named Collin. Collin too lives nearby Greg’s house. The reason why Greg loves going to Collin’s house is because of his good supply of video games. Greg is an avid lover of video games. Apart from his school, he usually spends his time hooked to his video games, which his mother doesn’t like at all. So, each time she grounds him from playing these games, he uses his friends Rowley or Collin, visiting their house to play these video games.

On the other side, Greg’s father is interested in getting him admitted to an all-boys school or a military academy. He often makes Greg participate in various kinds of sports such as soccer, swimming, wrestling, scouts, etc. But Greg always finds a way to trick his dad into thinking that he is doing just great in his current girls-boys school. He plays these sports only when he has to impress his dad in order to extract some favour from him.

In addition to sharing his experiences with his parents, Greg also writes about his experiences with his brothers. His elder brother, Rodrick, has a band in which he plays drums. Each time the band members gather in their house to practice, it causes their dad to feel annoyed. His dad, at all times, is wondering how to drive away these crazy teenyboppers out of their house.

On the flip side, Greg’s younger brother Manny is a spoiled child who is excessively pampered by their mom. Manny often takes advantage of this and gets Greg into trouble by meandering with the things, snacks and notebooks in his room. Greg has to hide everything with utmost caution to prevent Manny from reaching these. But when it comes to his elder brother, even he sometimes likes to mess up with him by sneaking into Rodrick’s room and fiddling with his belongings and stuff.
Rodrick is depicted to be a boy who likes to laze around all day on the sofa, but as soon as their parents are out of house, he becomes electrified, invites all his friends to the house and indulges in party time. Greg always has to keep these parties secret from their parents. First because he too wishes to enjoy these parties, and second, because he is terrified what if Rodrick reveals funny secrets about him to his friends, which would stain his reputation.
Greg has a crush on a girl named Piper Matthews. She is in a different school, but he encounters her almost every weekend when he goes to the church with his family. He is always trying to make a good impression on Piper’s parents, but nearly every time, it ends up becoming a comic event.
On days when he is not at school, or playing video games or at church, he usually visits his Gramma’s house. His grandma likes Manny more than him, and she doesn’t welcome Greg’s mischiefs at all. One day, as Greg is browsing through his Gramma’s house, he comes across a box of candies, from which he picks up one candy and eats it. For the next few days, he feels sick in his stomach, that’s when his father tells him that it was an antique box of candies. It had been kept in his Grandma’s house since the time when even he was a child.
Many such hilarious events mark Greg’s journal entries. One of these goes like this. Greg’s mother is a school teacher. So she hires a maid named Isabella to do the housework. While his mom is out on her job, Greg notices that Isabella sits all day on their sofa, watching television, eating snacks and partying with the neighborhood maids. The extremity occurs when Greg finds her socks in his bed and comes to know that she takes naps in his bed every day while he is at school. His mom fires Isabella.
Another funny event that Greg writes about is a block of years-old cheese lying on the sidelines of his school playground. He and the other boys of his class have a belief that this moldy cheese is haunted, and whoever touches it gets possessed by a disease. Everybody makes sure not to touch this block of cheese. One day, while Greg’s seniors catch him and Rowley, they start ragging them by making them bite into this ancient cheese. As always, Greg tricks them by placing all the onus on Rowley who has no choice but to eat that moldy block.
From mocking a boy in his classroom by treating him as invisible, to getting rejected from his school’s comics magazine for offensive humour, from stuffing his grandpa’s disgusting salad in his pockets to avoid eating, to secretly gulping away a gingerbread chocolate cake that his mother made for guests, several laugh-out-loud moments are studded in Greg’s journal entries. Everything he does or anything he attempts to become popular, it backfires at him in the most laughable of ways.
Apart from writing about his bizarre experiences with his aunts and uncles and neighbors, Greg also writes about oodles of life lessons, some deep and insightful, some witty and hilarious, that he learns over the course of these experiences. For instance, one lesson that he learns is, give people the least expectation of yourself so when you surpass them, they think you have grown wiser. Then, he also learns that one should learn to keep one’s mouth shut and not blurt out more than what is required. Sometimes speaking too much could make the tables turn against oneself.
There is a plethora of laughter moments embedded in the book. Whether you are a budding student or a full-fledged adult, the book is worth a read, a chronicle of so many relatable scenes and entertaining episodes!
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