Diary of a Wimpy Kid - No Brainer
No Brainer is the 18th book in the Diary of the Wimpy Kid Series, and in my opinion, one of the worst yet. This book mainly focuses on Greg Heffley's school experience, and while a lot of the books may do that, almost all the scenes in this book take place in the school.
Essentially, Greg's School had some of its worst testing scores yet, leading to massive budget cuts for them. This has led to the school taking some drastic measures to stay in business, such as renting out half of their classrooms to local businesses, while also cutting out all classes that weren't covering any curriculum that was part of the state testing. In addition, Greg's School started letting businesses advertise in any free area across the school, such as on lockers, on the floor, and in urinals, and school lunches also lost a lot of their quality, as the only thing the School was consistently serving nowadays were chocolate-covered tofu dogs. These changes however can only keep the school running for so long, as it all comes down to how well the school performs in testing at the end of the year, but to make that even more complicated, the school Newspapers leaked a list of which students would go to what school depending on if the school shutdown due to testing scores. The list shows that if the school were to get shut down, half of the kids would get sent to a very bougie high school, while the other half of the school would be sent to a school a couple towns away, that was doing even worse than their current school. This led to one-half of the school not trying at all on the test, while the other half tried their hardest, and eventually, the school shut down. The book finishes off with Greg getting sent to the worse school, but he miraculously finds a donor to save his previous school, and everything finishes happily ever after.
Overall, while the storyline wasn't bad, almost all of the book was focused on what led to the shutdown of the school, and only the last 20-ish pages actually focused on how Greg got his old school back into business. This led to a boring and dragged-out first part of the book, and a very rushed-out last portion of the book. In addition, this book was one of the un-funniest I've read so far, and it sounds less like an actual middle schooler is writing the book, and more like a 50-year-old man trying to imitate his writing style of the past that worked well, but he's failing more and more each time. In addition, all the previous books had a bunch of mini storylines simultaneously going with the main storyline to keep the books more entertaining, however, this book had none of them, which contributed to its overall boring-ness. All in all, this was a pretty mediocre book, and I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to stay away from it, but I wouldn't recommend it either. 5.1/10
Essentially, Greg's School had some of its worst testing scores yet, leading to massive budget cuts for them. This has led to the school taking some drastic measures to stay in business, such as renting out half of their classrooms to local businesses, while also cutting out all classes that weren't covering any curriculum that was part of the state testing. In addition, Greg's School started letting businesses advertise in any free area across the school, such as on lockers, on the floor, and in urinals, and school lunches also lost a lot of their quality, as the only thing the School was consistently serving nowadays were chocolate-covered tofu dogs. These changes however can only keep the school running for so long, as it all comes down to how well the school performs in testing at the end of the year, but to make that even more complicated, the school Newspapers leaked a list of which students would go to what school depending on if the school shutdown due to testing scores. The list shows that if the school were to get shut down, half of the kids would get sent to a very bougie high school, while the other half of the school would be sent to a school a couple towns away, that was doing even worse than their current school. This led to one-half of the school not trying at all on the test, while the other half tried their hardest, and eventually, the school shut down. The book finishes off with Greg getting sent to the worse school, but he miraculously finds a donor to save his previous school, and everything finishes happily ever after.
Overall, while the storyline wasn't bad, almost all of the book was focused on what led to the shutdown of the school, and only the last 20-ish pages actually focused on how Greg got his old school back into business. This led to a boring and dragged-out first part of the book, and a very rushed-out last portion of the book. In addition, this book was one of the un-funniest I've read so far, and it sounds less like an actual middle schooler is writing the book, and more like a 50-year-old man trying to imitate his writing style of the past that worked well, but he's failing more and more each time. In addition, all the previous books had a bunch of mini storylines simultaneously going with the main storyline to keep the books more entertaining, however, this book had none of them, which contributed to its overall boring-ness. All in all, this was a pretty mediocre book, and I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to stay away from it, but I wouldn't recommend it either. 5.1/10
-Muhammad
Nice blog Muhammed! When I read the first line I was shocked that there were 18 books now because I remember there being about 8 or so when I stopped reading them.
ReplyDeleteHello Muhammad, I remember in my past reading a bunch of the Diary of a Wimpy kid book up to book 14. I'm happy to see how the series is still developing up to this day.
ReplyDeleteHello Muhammad, as someone who has read far too many Diary Wimpy Kid books than I wish to admit, I found this review very interesting! The new book certainly sounds like a let down compared to the other books (which is saying a lot since the other books aren't that good to begin with). Notheless, great blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Muhammad, I remember how this series was so popular around my peers in elementary school, and I was constantly tempted into reading. Nice blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Muhammad! I kind of forgot about this series but I rediscovered it the other day. I'll make sure to check out some of the more recent books over the summer! Great review!
ReplyDeleteHi Muhammad! I was not expecting such an insult to the author's writing, but honestly, from what you've said about this book, that one comment you made was funnier than the entire book haha. Great blog!
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