YA Chick Lit

Dork Diaries 8: Tales from a Not-So-Happily Ever After

By Rachel Renee Russell

Russell, Rachel R, Nikki Russell, and Erin Russell. Tales from a Not-so-Happily Ever After. New York: Aladdin Press, 2014. Print. ISBN-13:  9781481421843, Hardcover, US $7.66

Overview

The “Dork Diaries” are the journals of the socially aspiring, fashion-impaired Westchester Country Day School student Nikki Maxwell. Each volume chronicles one month of the major crises in Nikki’s eighth-grade life. Tales from a Not-So-Happily Ever After is number 8 in the Dork Diaries series.

Looking back on my morning, there was definitely GOOD NEWS and BAD NEWS. The GOOD NEWS . . . ?

My day had gotten off to such a HORRIBLE start, I was absolutely SURE there was NO WAY things could get any WORSE !

The BAD NEWS . . . ?

I was TOTALLY WRONG about the GOOD NEWS!

In Tales from a Not-So-Happily Ever After, Nicki’s day gets off to a horrible start when her little sister, Brianna steals her alarm clock to make a peanut butter, jelly and pickle sandwich for school, making Nikki scramble to get ready and not to be late for school. Somehow, un-be-known to her, in the morning frenzy Nikki gets her lil sis’s sandwich plastered onto her new sweater and goes to school only to be laughed at and humiliated by her series long nemesis; Mackenzie Hollister.

Her day does not get any better. She is hit on the head in gym class playing dodgeball by, none other than Makenzie, and has a wild dream where all her classmates play the roles of some familiar classic fairy tale characters. (She had been given a long writing assignment on classic fairy tales by her English teacher in a previous class). The fairy tales don't exactly follow their classic storylines because they each have a very special Dork Diaries spin!!This is one April Fools day Nikki would rather forget.

Author Rachel Renee Russell is an attorney who prefers writing tween books to legal briefs. (Mainly because books are a lot more fun and pajamas and bunny slippers aren’t allowed in court.) - See more at: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Rachel-Renee-Russell/49850702#sthash.7LwKdQlD.dpuf

She wrote her first book when she was in middle school and presented the story to her twin brothers as a birthday present. She later earned her law degree and worked as an attorney while simultaneously writing her best-known books.

She based Dork Diaries on her own experiences in childhood and on the lives of her two daughters, Erin