The Year of Living Awkwardly

April 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-In this sequel to Confessions of a High School Disaster: Chloe Snow's Diary, the title character is now entering her sophomore year. There is more spot-on teenage angst. Chloe acknowledges her privileged life, even in the middle of her problems. Chloe's parents are in the process of getting a divorce. Her mother is still in Mexico and is deliberately making it difficult to be contacted. Chloe has missed her chance with Grady because of her recent flirtation with Mac. And to top it all off, her dad and her language arts teacher, who is also the director of the musical, seem to be having a thing. The mean girls, however, are also having problems. Noelle's summer in Paris has turned her into quite a beautiful young woman, and Reese is not going to stand for any competition. As Chloe observes Noelle getting the same treatment she endured the year before, she steps up and befriends Noelle. Interspersed throughout her diary-type entries are bits of advice, text messages, emails, and more. VERDICT Purchase where the first book is popular, and where fun, light realistic fiction circulates well.-Deanna McDaniel, Genoa Middle School, OH

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2018
Chloe Snow's freshman year was characterized by highs and lows, and her sophomore year is shaping up to offer much of the same. Last year, Chloe was the lead in the school musical and received the occasional attention of an older guy. She also grew apart from her best friend and suffered a bout of intense cyberbullying, all while her flaky mother trotted off to Mexico and her parents' marriage fell apart. The series' second installment reads like a watered-down version of the first. Chloe's mother is still in Mexico, occasionally popping up in Chloe's inbox to wreak emotional havoc. Her relationship with her best friend is once again strained. Mean-girl bullying rears its ugly head again, this time in person. Chloe continues to drop in moments of social awareness acknowledging her many privileges as a "straight, white, upper-middle-class person," but she immediately discards such realizations, returning to her own self-absorbed drama. The biggest change is that she spends this year obsessing over a younger guy with a girlfriend instead of an older one. Those who loved Chloe's first diary may enjoy reading much of the same again, but the narrative offers little to anyone else.Filled with the whining and pining of a sophomore girl's diary and sadly lacking in substance. (Fiction. 12-15)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.