Diary of a Wimpy Kid : The Last Straw

Every once in a while you need a break from wizard boys, sparkling vampires, conspiracy theories, go-nowhere love stories, end-of-the-world page turners and the never ending stream of parallel worlds.

Every once in a while you need to forget that you are a full-blown adult whose literary tastes are mature and discerning and who, to put it mildly is a bit up-yourself.

Every once in a while, you need to escape into the world of a Wimpy middle-school Kid who is high on smarts and low on luck.

It’s time to hold your breath over the unwashed clothes and dodge the well-meaning parents and stumble over the boogers as you venture into the world of Greg Heffley.

Greg Heffley’s astounding schemes and equally mind-boggling failures continue. His chief bête noire in this book is his long-suffering dad. Greg’s father wants to make a man out of his dandelion-blowing son. To achieve this admirable goal, he is intent on sending Greg off to a military academy. This doesn’t sit well with Mr.Wimpy, who was looking forward to a summer of playing video-games and sleeping....snarfing down junk-food and sleeping....hooking up with the pretty Holly Hills and yep, catching up on some more sleep.

The Wimpy Kid series may be considered juvenile and trite. But it’s entertaining and you read it with a constant smile playing on your lips. Sometimes you even snort with glee (well, I did). I say, regardless of your age....pick it up for some instant laughs, dry humour and a cast of characters that is so unbelievably well put together that you can’t help but stay hooked.

Five Flavors of DUMB

An obscure school-band wins the local *Battle-of-the-Bands* and struts about like it’s the next great thing since sliced bread. An equally obscure but diligent student disses the band’s shenanigans in front of it’s groupies and finds herself at the receiving end of an unexpected challenge : Get the band a paying gig within a month and she’ll be it’s official manager with a sizeable share in the band’s future profits.

How does a complete musical-heathen manage a band that’s a worrying mix of:

1) A manipulative, self-absorbed lead singer.

2) A completely gorgeous but utterly talentless piece of eye-candy.

3) An angry girl-rocker with spiky green hair and a barbed wire attitude.

4) A silent guitarist who hides from the world and possibly the other band members too, behind the curtains of his overlong hair.

5) A nerd-boy drummer who plays like a dream but doesn’t fit the hard rock image.

More importantly, how does the aforementioned musical-heathen manage a musical group when she’s DEAF?

THAT single, sole premise had me ordering the book in a flash. Tons of repetitive YA Lit with the same tired, clichéd plot lines later....this book resonated with originality.

Piper Vaughn makes an endearing main lead. She’s deaf but never down. Through a blend of sign-language and efficient lip-reading she gets by just fine. But managing a rock band seems like an improbable challenge. How does an eighteen year old (burdened with enough baggage of her own) pull together a bursting-at-the-seams band and make it work?

The book could have gone wrong in so many ways. It could have been preachy or self-deprecating. It could have started off on a promising note and then ended up in the YA Lit pit of teen angst, unrequited love and peer pressure.

Thankfully, the author stuck to his guns. Sure there’s angst. There’s love. And betrayal. And parents who don’t understand. But the author never veers from the main subject. It’s about a girl. A girl with a condition that she doesn’t consider as a disability. And said girl has to manage a band. CASE CLOSED.

Five Flavours of Dumb holds equal appeal for the ones who know their discerning genres of rock as well as for those who wouldn’t blink an eyelid if Cobain materialized before their eyes.

A minty fresh idea handled with humour, sparkling dialogue and the ability to give you food for thought.