As a child of the 80's, I might have some bias, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading Adrian's diary, seeing his perspective on growing up 80s style. The characters are well-developed and left me feeling as if I knew them as well as Adrian himself. A treasure of a book!

While it made me laugh out loud on occasion, this book was just not for me. I know Adrian is supposed to be clueless but he’s also obnoxious and most of the time I wanted to reach through the pages to choke him. His situation is not a good one, but I get the feeling he would be just as annoying even in the perfect home. I suppose the humor is just not my style.

If you enjoyed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series but think that was too "young" for you or your students, you will enjoy Sue Townsend's series about a boy named Adrian living in the UK during the early 80's.  He is an only child, so he doesn't have the same family issues that Greg does, but his parents' marriage in in jeopardy, he faces bullies at school, he has a crush on a girl named Pandora, and he is dealing with the stresses of being an adolescent in a world he doesn't understand completely.  Luckily, Adrian is an "intellectual" and is documenting his day-to-day in a diary, so we read first-hand his views of his mom's infidelity and his dad's depression.  We feel feelings for his poor dog, and compassion for the old man he is helping.

What I liked about this book was how funny it was!  I was rolling within the first page or two of reading it.  Unfortunately, my husband did not enjoy it, because I usually read in bed once he's gone to sleep.  It really reminded me of the point of view of Greg in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, because he sees things differently than we might as the reader.  This book killed me whenever I read it, even in parts that shouldn't have been funny in real life.  Adrian is a likable character.  When I first got this book on NetGalley, I didn't realize it was a book previously published in 1982 with 11 books in the series.  Townsend could probably have gone on if she hadn't passed away in 2015.

What I didn't like about this book is that I can't share it with my students, who are only in sixth grade.  I felt there was so much that would either go over their heads (since the lingo wouldn't be familiar to them) or would be inappropriate for their age (Adrian is several years older and they aren't quite ready for talk of dirty magazines or measuring private parts).  If I taught high school, though, the entire series would be on my shelf.

I am not sure if this book would be considered YA, but I enjoyed it. The charcter held your interest and it was a very easy read. Good book. Thanks to NetGally, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Adrian is a precocious young teen who is dramatically expressive in his language and emotions. Hilarious book.

So funny, I tortured my husband by insisting on reading bits out loud all the way through.

It had been a long time since I first read this as a young teen, and rereading as an adult gives an entirely different perspective. It vividly and accurately captures the self-centered hypocrisy and typical misunderstandings of a teenager while being jam-packed with observations than any Brit should recognize. (For the American audience, it includes an afterword that will help with some translations and context.) Aside from the Noddy bit, which I've always remembered with great amusement, this has the most accurate and realistic description of a school trip that I've ever encountered!

Through Adrian's eyes you see parental relationships, pensioners, and class division, yet it so cleverly shows his lack of understanding and inability to read the situation while yet making it incredibly clear for the adult reader what's going on.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Like many before him, pimply, priggish, pretentious 13-year-old Adrian Mole — well, 13 and three-fourths, to be precise — begins a diary on New Year’s Day. Well, he Leicester had me from the very start. Adrian’s the sort of boy who imagines a future in which his parents, his teachers, school bully Barry Kent, and just about everyone will be sorry that they weren’t nicer to him. My favorite quote? “Perhaps when I am famous and my diary is discovered, people will understand the torment of being a 13¾-year-old undiscovered intellectual.”

His entries over two years detail his frustrations with his parents, his infatuation with the popular Pandora, his pompous posing as an intellectual “artiste,” his snobbery and self-dramatization, his dreadful poems, and the awkward obsessions with acne and being cool endemic to all teens in every age. His obliviousness and the usual teen self-absorption, while amusing, brings back memories of my own 13th year, when I locked myself in my room after school every day, wrote book reviews, and cried about my hard, hard life as the pampered daughter who never lifted a finger about the house. Leicester, UK, in the 1980s clearly wasn’t that different from Miami in 1970s, another, more innocent age. Like Adrian with Pandora (“my treacle-haired love”), I was in love with red-headed Darryl McNair, my lab partner, who never gave me a second thought. And like the overly sensitive Adrian, I would have died if Darryl had ever known. At the same time, my heart went out to Adrian over Barry Kent’s bullying him, his parents’ squabbling, and his teen angst and utter cluelessness.

You’ll laugh out loud — right before you catch yourself thanking God that those days are behind you. Despite his priggishness and cluelessness, it’s impossible not to love Adrian Mole.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
by Sue Townsend
Open Road Integrated Media


Middle Grade
Pub Date 02 Jan 2018


I am reviewing a copy of The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 Through Open Integrated Media and Netgalley:


Almost fourteen year old Adrian Mole is approaching fourteen. He fears his parents are going to get a divorce because they don't smoke together like they used to. He's got grotesque acne and his crush received far to many valentine days card. His p.e teacher makes it hard for him.

He has decided to be a poet, but no one seems to like his poetry, and after reading Animal Farm he will not touch porch.


I give The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!!!