Books › That's What Friends Aren't For (Dear Dumb Diary #9)
That's What Friends Aren't For (Dear Dumb Diary #9)
131 pages
A hilarious, highly dramatic peek into the chaotic mind of a middle schooler navigating the absolute worst fate imaginable: forced friendship.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like being handed the secret, highly classified thoughts of the most dramatic middle schooler you know. The pace is brisk and bouncy, driven by the breathless, conversational energy of a diary format. It immerses the reader in a chaotic, lighthearted mood where everyday school and family changes—like a forced friendship resulting from a family marriage—are treated with hilarious, world-ending gravity. The prose is wonderfully exaggerated, spinning wild, catastrophic scenarios out of minor inconveniences, complete with run-on sentences that perfectly capture juvenile anxiety. It is an absolute delight for young readers who appreciate sarcastic humor, school-hallway dynamics, and the sheer, unadulterated melodrama of navigating life when you are convinced everything is a massive crisis.
- Mood
- lighthearted
- chaotic
- silly
- energetic
- Tone
- dramatic
- humorous
- exaggerated
- sarcastic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- forced friendship · middle school social dynamics · catastrophic thinking · blended families
- The writing
- Conversational, highly dramatic, and structured as a secret diary filled with breathless run-on rationalizations.
- The arc
- Moves from reluctant acceptance of an unwanted friendship through a spiral of hilarious, exaggerated anxieties.
- Who it's for
- Middle-grade readers who love highly dramatic, laugh-out-loud diary formats and relatable school-aged anxieties.
Content notes
- divorce
About the book
Bestselling author Jamie Kelly is back with an all-new, all-funny diary! But she has no idea that anybody is reading it. So please, please, please don't tell her. Dear Dumb Diary, So now I'm friends with Angeline. This is automatic friendship, and I have to just accept it and make the best of things. See, if I objected, then Aunt Carol might divorce Angeline's uncle, sending both of them tumbling into a deep pit of depression for the rest of their lives, and Angeline could wind up feeling so guilty that she would have to go be locked up in an old dirty insane asylum for years and years, and Stinker's puppies could grow up not knowing both their parents --- and I couldn't live with myself for doing something like that to a puppy
Description from Open Library.
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