Dork Diaries 13 – Tales from a Not-So-Happy Birthday

Rachel Renee Russell's Tales from a Not-So-Happy Birthday is a funny, frantic friendship story for 10 year olds about a birthday party that's going wrong before it's even happened.

What happens

It's the thirteenth Dork Diaries book. School's out, Nikki Maxwell's birthday is coming up, and she's just had a nightmare about a party that ends with her covered in frosting like a human cupcake. So she'd rather not bother, thanks. A sleepover with her two best friends will do.

Chloe and Zoey have other ideas. They make themselves her "social director" and "activities director". Within a day it's an island luau pool party for a hundred guests. The budget is $8.73, which is what Nikki has in her sock drawer.

Then Mum takes over with a $100 plan of her own. It includes accordion music from their elderly neighbour Mrs Wallabanger, plus a couple of ladies from her belly-dancing class. (Two becomes TWENTY-FOUR. Can you imagine?)

The boys don't help either. Two of them end up on video calls to Nikki at the same time, bickering like toddlers and both trying to ask her the same question.

Reading it is like being inside Nikki's very dramatic head. There's a yoga class with Mum, right next to her worst enemy MacKenzie, where the most embarrassing thing that could possibly happen in a silent room does. Your reader will either cringe or howl (probably both).

But the sweetest bit comes straight after. Mum takes her for a hot fudge sundae and tells her about the time she threw up on her prom date. Guess who the date turned out to be? It's a lovely, warm little moment between a mum and a daughter.

Little sister Brianna is a menace as usual. Her peanut butter and sardine sandwich shoots out of the toaster and sticks to the kitchen ceiling.

If your reader has ever planned a party in their head right down to the cake, they'll be cheering Nikki on through every disaster.

What to read next

Nikki's friends, her crush and her frenemy are all well known to each other by now. So for a reader new to her, the place to start is Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life, where she arrives at Westchester Country Day with a very embarrassing phone.