Dork Diaries: Constructive Criticism

Not-So-Fabulous Life:

Just one thing isn't clear to me: HOW can Nikki be in eighth grade but be fourteen years old?! Was she held back a grade? Or something? But in the third book, it says ZOEY is fourteen too. You can turn fourteen once you pass the New Year's Mark, but before that, you HAVE to be thirteen. It's illogical. UNLESS, of course, this is in some part of the USA that we've NEVER heard to have the old system - that you begin grade school at seven years old.

Not-So-Popular Party Girl

Nothing, except that it concentrates a little too much on the whole Halloween thing. I want to see the OTHER aspects of Nikki's quirky life and MORE bursts of her overactive imagination. For example: I really liked how in the first book, she actually made a little picture of a blog when she said that you were supposed to post dark secrets and juicy gossip in a BLOG and not a diary. And her drawing of the pretend fashion police! :)

Not-So-Talented Pop Star

The whole reason that Nikki had her BFF feud was because she didn't. Ask. For. Help. That is the ultimate reason that people get in trouble, whether in books or real life!!! She says in 3 1/2 that she can trust Chloe and Zoey with her LIFE; why didn't she tell them about everything that was troubling her? Nikki wrote that that was because she didn't want to get them mixed up in the "dramafest" that was her life and the subtle war between her and MacKenzie. Well - still! Asking for help is the best thing to do when you have real great best friends. In the second book, the reason that she got into a big mess in the end (she wanted to hang out with Brandon as his date AND Chloe&Zoey, but separately because she had different costumes for each . . . long story) was because she didn't confide in Chloe and Zoey.

Not-So-Graceful Ice Princess

Something seems wrong with the proportions here. In the drawings, MacKenzie has like . . . REALLY big hair. Like in those Barbie tales, where the various Barbies' hair looks like she used some demented lab-infused supervolumizing shampoo, and then put in fifty toilet-paper sized curlers. That's pretty much what MacKenzie looks like, too.

MacKenzie's hair is all the way to her HIPS and sometimes PAST, if you look carefully, and I'm telling you NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE have hair THAT long. Nikki didn't tell us the actual length of MacKenzie's hair, right? Fore example, the picture of MacKenzie in her Holiday On Ice T-Shirt (I think it would look better if it weren't tied up in a knot in the corner), and all the pictures of MacKenzie in her skating outfits . . . BIIIIIG HAIIIIIR! Somehow her torso gets SUPER thin and their hands and feet are really big again. I'm sorry, but I can't help noticing this stuff.

And also, in the 3rd book, it says that the host of Fifteen Minutes of Fame was going to meet up with the members of Dorkalicious and their parents to discuss performing their song after the holidays. Well . . . weeeeell? Did it happen?