The Nightmare Room 05 – Dear Diary, I’m Dead

R. L. Stine's Dear Diary, I'm Dead is a creepy Nightmare Room story for 11 year olds about a boy whose new diary keeps writing tomorrow before it happens.

What happens

Alex bets on everything. His grades, basketball scores, whether his mum's surprise is finally a puppy. He almost always loses, usually to Tessa, the cleverest girl in his class.

So when his teacher suggests keeping a diary for extra credit, he bets Tessa a hundred dollars his diary will be more exciting than hers. (He's completely broke at the time.)

Then his parents buy him an old desk from an antiques shop. Right at the back of the bottom drawer is a small black diary with blank pages. By that evening the first page is filled in, with an entry for tomorrow. In Alex's own handwriting!

Would you be able to resist reading on? Alex certainly can't. A surprise geography test, the score of the school basketball game, exactly what Tessa will say in the corridor. It all comes true, and for a boy who's always out of pocket it feels like the best thing that's ever happened to him.

Alex tells the story himself and he's great company. He's cheeky and quick with a joke, and he never stops scheming. You can feel him getting hooked on the diary (after one day he admits he NEEDS it), and that's where the creepiness creeps in.

There's a dream about the very last page of the diary with just one word on it. You can probably guess which word from the title.

It's a Nightmare Room book, so it's properly spooky, but the fear builds slowly and mostly lives inside Alex's head. In between there's band practice in a garage that keeps blowing its fuses, bickering with his mates Chip and Shawn, and a LOT of betting. His mum keeps telling him to stop, and the story isn't exactly on the side of his habit.

If they like a scary story built on one brilliant idea, this is a very easy one to get stuck into. The early chapters are short and keep ending on cliffhangers.

What to read next

For another Nightmare Room story with a completely new cast, try Don't Forget Me. Danielle jokes that she'd love to make her annoying little brother disappear, and it starts to feel a lot less funny.