Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. It is the first book in the “Dork Diaries” series.
Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. It is the first book in the “Dork Diaries” series.
Now that her dad’s bug extermination company has a contract with the prestigious Westchester County Day Middle School, 14-year-old Nikki has started attending on a scholarship. Nikki struggles to fit in since she doesn’t own expensive clothes or a fancy cellphone. It doesn’t help that her locker is right next to MacKenzie Hollister, the most popular — and also meanest — girl in the eighth grade.
While MacKenzie and her friends belittle everyone’s clothes, hair, acne, make-up, etc., MacKenzie seems to have a special dislike for Nikki. She purposely and publicly humiliates Nikki by pretending to invite her to an epic birthday bash and then mocking her because the invitation was meant for another girl. She also gives Nikki a hard time because Nikki’s father is an exterminator with a huge bug on the top of his vehicle.
Nikki, an aspiring artist, longs to sign up for the school’s art contest with its $500 prize. But whenever she gets near the office to pick up an entry form, MacKenzie thwarts her plans. MacKenzie, who fancies herself a future fashion designer, throws her money into creating a large, elaborate entry.
On one of her attempts to pick up an entry form, Nikki chickens out and signs up to help as a library book shelver. In this job, she meets Chloe and Zoey, two nutty but sweet girls, who love to read and take their library work seriously. Chloe and Zoey, along with the cute school photographer, Brandon, rescue Nikki after several of MacKenzie’s pranks humiliate her.
Chloe and Zoey learn that a few hardworking library assistants will be chosen to attend a week-long field trip in New York for National Library Week. They’re determined to be selected. When other students start coveting the ink pen tattoos Nikki has made for Chloe and Zoey, the girls decide to urge people to donate books in exchange for Nikki’s body art. While the book drive goes well, and everyone is impressed with Nikki’s talent, she’s quickly burned out by the huge number of people on her tattoo waiting list. Her exhaustion culminates in oversleeping on the day of an important test and accidentally destroying the art project she’d finally managed to enter in the art contest. Defeated, she decides that since people just want her for her skills, she’s going to quit giving tattoos and transfer schools.
When she takes her parents in to fill out the transfer paperwork, she discovers Chloe, Zoey and Brandon have secretly entered her work in the art contest, but not her original project. Instead, they’ve photographed various students’ tattoos and have displayed them. Not only has Nikki won the art contest and enraged MacKenzie, she’s discovered she has friends who care about her.
Nikki prays hard all through her difficult geometry test, asking for help to pass it and apologizing for snoozing in church.
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Nikki depicts her mom as clueless because she doesn’t understand Nikki’s cellphone needs and she falls for Nikki’s fake vomiting act. Both of Nikki’s parents appear to be involved and concerned. When they sense she’s struggling at her new school, they leave affirming messages around the house for her. They also support her efforts to improve her artistic abilities.
The words sucked, butt and the abbreviation OMG are used frequently. Nikki talks about watching Tyra Banks cursing at America’s Top Model contestants and calling them “fat, worthless skanks.”
Nikki says there are many celebrity party girls who regularly forget to wear undies but wouldn’t be caught dead without their cellphones.
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Cheating: Nikki mentions cheating on a test in first grade and winning a scholastic award because of her good score. There are no bad consequences for her actions
Lying: To avoid going to school, Nikki concocts an elaborate fake vomit mixture (and includes the recipe in her diary). She pours it on herself and tells her mom she threw up. She lies to her little sister to get her out of MacKenzie’s house before MacKenzie discovers Nikki’s dad is an exterminator. MacKenzie tells lies at school to protect her reputation. Nikki’s friends fabricate a book donation drive on the spot. Though Nikki considers it sort of a lie, she says it’s better to have friends that can hook you up with cute guys than friends who are brutally honest.
Pop culture references: Nikki is a big fan of model Tyra Banks. Chloe says she learned from reading Twilight that forbidden love, obsession and sacrifice could be very messy things.
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