This books was goody funny, but my kids loved it when they saw me reading it and looked over my shoulder. They wanted me to get a copy for them, since I wasn't willing to give them my computer. Highly recommended for reluctant readers in upper elementary or middle school. Fun and light.

I can't say as I particularly enjoyed this one. It didn't strike me as particularly authentic. I didn't believe the presentation of the protagonist.

A BIG Thank You to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me a copy of “My Life in Smiley (Book 1 in Smiley series): It’s All Good” by Anne Kalicky in exchange for my review. This is a book similar to the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series where it covers the adventures of an average boy over the period of one year in middle grade. However, I felt this book did not have the same charm or humor that the Wimpy Kid series has.

Here are the reasons that brought down my rating for this book. Firstly, there are some scenes where I felt that the humor is lost in translation. There’s a scene where Max and his English pen pal Conrad share jokes on how they imitate each other’s accents. According to Max, Conrad asks “Where is the Cantine?” with an English accent. Okay, so what? I didn’t understand what was funny. There’s another scene where Max’s dad wants to practice his English on Conrad and asks him “Where is the fromaidge”. What’s that? Perhaps the author should have made a few edits on the jokes for English language readers to enjoy.

Furthermore, there were some scenes that I just couldn’t connect to. For instance, Max’s mom sends him a text message to come for dinner, even though they are in the same house. Is this a new age trend that people follow by texting their children while staying under the same roof? Then there were other scenes that were just repetitious and annoying. Ironically, Max doesn’t even realize how annoying HE is when repeatedly describes how annoying his sister Marion is.

However, the main important reason why I didn’t enjoy this book was due to the illustrations. I felt most of the illustrations were mediocre and done in a hurry. The illustrations in the Wimpy Kid series are very neat, with bold outlines that are consistent and strike the reader. The illustrations in this book were squiggly, scratchy, and had a lot of rough shading that looked very haphazard. Perhaps it was to done to show that it is a journal of an actual 11 year old, but I didn’t enjoy it. The author over uses smileys at times and I started skipping them entirely in an attempt to finish the book.

The only reason I am giving this an average rating is because parts of the book were fun to read. I enjoyed the scenes where Max decides to get coupons as Christmas gifts for his family, and when he sings for the retirement home. In addition to that, I also liked Lisa’s character a lot! I laughed out loud when she obsesses over ‘Ben Didji” and loves receiving appendages as gifts for her birthday. Maybe this book would have been more fun if Lisa was the main character.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book as I thought I would and give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

I love 💕 books 📚 written in diary form! I especially love 💕 books 📚 written in diary for that are illustrated! I love 💕 emojis 😃😍😋🤪😎! Unfortunately I didn’t love 💕this book 📖. Maybe I’m comparing it too much to others I’ve read like Dork Diaries but I found this book 📖 bordering on boring 💤.

There’s a dire warning ⚠️ about not reading this book 📖 until 2126 with the threat of such cool 😎 stuff as hundreds of tarantulas 🕷 jumping out of massive black blisters on your hands 🤚. I read the warning ⚠️ page and got my hopes up but it turned out that this was the only page that really showed the kind of personality I’ve come to expect in diary format kid’s books 📚.

It’s not like nothing happened. We follow Max, who’s 11, through his first year at middle school. Max lives in France 🇫🇷 with his parents and sisters Marion, who’s 14 and super annoying and Lisa, who’s 8 and the favourite child. He’s best friends with Tom, a skinny nerd 🤓. Together they play Zombieland 🧟‍♀️ 🧟‍♂️ on Xbox 🎮 and they have their own chicken 🐔 nugget eating record. Max has a crush on Naïs who is consistently described as pretty.

At school there is assigned seating and of course Max has been assigned to sit next to his arch nemesis, Raoul. Max recounts gym dramas and other classes he attends. There’s a field trip to the retirement home, exchange students visit from England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and there’s a field trip to the Eiffel Tower. There are also visits to Max’s grandparents, skiing ⛷ and parties 🎈to plan and attend. During the school year there is an ongoing mystery of who is responsible for the graffiti on the wall on the way to school and how the artist knows so much about Max.

So, with all of this happening why wasn’t this a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ book 📖? There wasn’t the humour I expected. The main character barely had a personality. There were cute illustrations and emoji overload, but I’m not desperately needing to read the second book 📖 in this series. Perhaps this one was just setting the groundwork for future incredible stories. Maybe some of the humour got lost in the translation.

What it boiled down to for me was that this book 📖 was just okay 👌. I’m not jumping up and down excited 😆 about my new discovery but I also made it to the end so it didn’t completely suck either. I may relent and try the second book 📖 (maybe) but it won’t have the honour of going straight to the top of the TBR pile.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to read this book 📖.

My Life in Smiley is to be a series of diary-style books following Max, a middle school kid from France. Max knows he'll grow up and do something amazing to benefit mankind, but until then, he's chronicling his life so that future humans in 2126 can see what it was like.

The real hook for this series is the use of Smiley stickers, which are cleverly used to elevate the storytelling. Sections of the book are highlighted in yellow or have colorful emojis sprinkled throughout to clue you in on the emotional mood of our hero, Max. I think these visual elements do a good job of holding your attention and keep the pages turning.

This was good for a few giggles, but I felt let down by the overall book. My Life in Smiley provided no new twists or surprises to the diary-story format that would compel me to re-read this, or pick up the following books.


I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions and comments I share about this story are my own.

I read this with my 10-year-old, and he really enjoyed it!

I read it with my 11 year old daughter. She is an avid really and quite enjoyed this book.

Read this with my 10 year old. She enjoyed it to some extent but the story didn't grab us as much as others have.

I read this along with my ten year old daughter whom is in gifted classes and she LOVED this book! We usually have a hard time finding books to catch her attention but she really enjoyed this one. I thought it was a fun read for kids!

"A painful, predictable failure," indeed. Takes all the weaker elements of these youthful diary/confessional books, and adds colour. The main character is hardly likeable, the plot barely there. DNF.