Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School

The book gets off to a rocky start, firstly because it struggles to deliver its thesis. The author is clearly taking the “everyones on their damn phones too much these days” position, but using Greg as a pro-technology strawman, (in modern parlance we call this portraying him as the soyjak) and it simply isnt convincing. This will become a recurring theme throughout the book. Next it features a joke about the pet pig learning to walk and roaming freely like a house cat, which just doesn't land because of how far fetched it is. The humour of the DoaWK series has always come from the realistic characters and situations, and so far the book was undermining what made the series work, which didn't instill a ton of confidence for me.

The book shouldn't be judged too soon however as any failings quickly become overshadowed. The book is full of classic antics from Greg and the extended cast, most notably for me the bit where Greg claims he deserves credit for the work a third grader does for “discovering” him, which instantly reeled me back in and from there I was hooked. The character development in this book, such as when we get to see Greg's sentimentality and love for his mom, was the real seller, and reminds us why this series is so good. All this intersects and reaches its pinnacle at the end when we get a hint that Frank has some of Greg's traits in him, and the story comes full circle as Greg decides to keep the story of Silas Scratch (which we just learned was started by Frank) going in a callback to earlier. Everyone already knows a story is nothing without a great ending and this doesn't disappoint. The end easily bumps the book from a 3.5 to a 4 star.

I'm somewhat embarrassed I didn't have more faith in Jeff Kinney. Despite the book lacking some of the humour that the series is known for it's full of other qualities that make this yet another classic in the DoaWK series, and by the end the book has no trouble proving the strength of Kinney's writing. An absolute must read.