Dork Diaries 9 – Tales from a Not-So-Dorky Drama Queen

Rachel Renee Russell's Dork Diaries - Tales From a Not so Dorky Drama Queen is a laugh-out-loud diary story for 10 year olds, and this time Nikki's worst enemy gets her hands on the diary.

What happens

Nikki Maxwell's week is going badly. She's been hit in the face with a dodgeball. She's walked round school with a sandwich stuck to her sweater. And now there's a rumour that her crush, Brandon, only kissed her on a dare to win a free pizza.

Guess who's spreading it? MacKenzie Hollister, queen of the popular girls and the owner of the locker right next to Nikki's.

Brandon won't talk to her after a very awkward mix-up at their lockers. So Nikki's best friends, Chloe and Zoey, come up with a plan. Chloe rings the pizza place pretending to be Brandon ("for tax purposes") to get a copy of his receipt. It's a hilariously bad impression (Zoey and Nikki can only cringe).

Meanwhile at home, little sister Brianna has been trusted with the class goldfish for the weekend. She gives him a bubble bath! Which leads to Nikki and her mum banging on the door of a pet shop just before closing time to find a replacement.

As always, it's literally like reading someone's real diary. Nikki goes from joking about MacKenzie to worrying that her very first kiss was a big joke, sometimes in the same paragraph. It's all capital letters and exclamation marks and very big feelings. Is there anything more dramatic than a crush who might not like you back?

Then the diary goes missing. And the entries start being written by somebody else.

That's the treat in this one. Fans of the series have spent a LOT of time disliking MacKenzie, so hearing her side is brilliant. She's snobby and vain and hilariously rude about Nikki's clothes. Her maid serves her breakfast on a silver tray. She also comes out with some very over-the-top jokes about what she'd rather do than ride in Nikki's family car (it's definitely a mean-girl voice).

This sits a good way into the series, and it talks about past events like the Sweetheart Dance as if you'll know them. It still works on its own, but it's more fun if you've met everyone before.

What to read next

If this is your reader's first Dork Diaries, it's worth going back to Tales From a Not So Fabulous Life, where Nikki starts at her new school and begins writing everything down.