The Last Straw (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3) by Jeff Kinney

Something different in the new year… Although technically it’s not new year anymore. I found this book at my parents’ place, among a pile of old books. This is one of my brother’s books, which I had never got around to reading. He does buy some interesting books!

The story is about Greg Heffley, a middle schooler with so many issues that there is never a dull moment in his head. The book is in the form of a diary (duh!) written by him. There are illustrations (similar to the one on the cover) that add to the whole effect. There is less a story and more a collection of incidents and accidents that happen with Greg. But the events are all connected to each other, as it happens in real life. You have Greg trying to “improve” others as part of his new year’s resolution, trying out football to appease his dad, becoming a boy scout to avoid going to military school, and so on. And through all of it, Greg barely learns any life lesson.

Greg is overly confident, even though he is not really exceptional in anything. He likes to think he is better than others. He is self-absorbed and not necessarily honest with his “friend.” But because we are reading his diary, we know that this lack of honesty is almost always because of a lack of thinking from another’s point of view. As long as he is happy, he doesn’t care about others. He doesn’t like doing chores and also doesn’t think things through. I guess it is difficult to do so as a kid. His lack of hygiene made me uncomfortable. Plus, I’m not sure how his mother never intervened.

This book is a laugh-out-loud comedy, with ridiculous scenarios that are somehow still realistic. The characters other than Greg are two-dimensional, but that is more because Greg thinks of them that way. The events are hilarious and make you want to keep reading. It does not take long to read. I finished it in one sitting, in maybe about an hour or two. The books in this series are supposed to be children’s books, but I’m not too sure of that. Children might think this is the right way to act or think, leading to behavioral issues. To me, this seems more for older kids, who can differentiate between right and wrong and take the story the way it is meant—a comedy of errors and that’s about it.

My rating: ★★★☆☆