Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life

“Or my overwhelming ANGST about the HORRIFIC discovery that I’m a PRINCESS of a small French-speaking principality and now worth BILLIONS!!”

Nikki has decided to write in the diary after all, and this is the final item in her list of things she refuses to write about (which also includes boys and kissing). These lines are a direct reference to Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series, which focuses on the preteen and teenage years of Mia Thermopolis, who learns she is the princess of the fictional country of Genovia. Like Dork Diaries, Princess Diaries is written entirely in journal format, and Mia’s entries focus mainly on her sudden and unwanted transition into training to be a princess, as well as boys, kissing, and other topics Nikki says she won’t write about but does anyway.

“As a little joke, I told Brianna the Tooth Fairy collected teeth from children all over the world and then superglued them together to make dentures for old people. [...] But my prank kind of backfired, because now she absolutely REFUSES to use the bathroom at night unless I first check inside to make sure the Tooth Fairy is not hiding behind the shower curtain or under the bath towels.”

These lines summarize the Tooth Fairy prank Nikki plays on her younger sister and exemplify the book’s theme of Expectations Versus Reality. This is one of the first times when Nikki notes how something she did to bother someone else didn’t work the way she wanted. Since Nikki is still early in her character arc, she doesn’t learn from the lesson here. Rather than getting her sister to leave her alone, the prank causes Nikki’s sister to bother her more. Altogether, the situation represents how lying rarely gets the outcome we’d like. It’s possible that Nikki’s sister, being a kid, would have still bugged Nikki without the lie, but the lie increased how much Nikki’s sister bothers her, the exact opposite effect Nikki wanted.

“My magazine says every girl needs to be friendly and find her own inner beauty deep down inside.

But I say every girl needs to be smart and strong and IGNORE all the HATERS!”

Nikki quotes a magazine for teen girls, and the magazine’s advice represents the societal pressure on girls to always be in control and appear perfect. The idea that girls must be friendly underhandedly suggests that girls should be kind to others no matter what, even in potentially harmful situations. By learning to always be friendly, girls are taught to be people-pleasers, which can lead to them agreeing to situations that make them afraid or uncomfortable. The advice to find inner beauty has fewer potential pitfalls, but it does suggest that girls need to be beautiful in some form, and society compounds this by offering a definition of beauty for girls to follow. Nikki’s advice, if overly simple, is better, telling girls to think for themselves, take care of their own needs, and ignore people who dislike them for being who they are.

“So, instead of trying to achieve my dream of winning a major art competition, I very STUPIDLY signed up to shelve DUSTY and BORING LIBRARY BOOKS!…

And it’s ALL MacKenzie’s fault!!”

These lines come after Nikki signed up to be a library shelving assistant instead of entering the art contest. Nikki blames MacKenzie, but all MacKenzie did was stand in line and make fun of Nikki. MacKenzie didn’t physically prevent Nikki from signing up or somehow sabotage Nikki’s entry into the contest, meaning Nikki not entering the contest is not MacKenzie’s fault at all. This is one instance where Nikki blames MacKenzie for Nikki’s own inability to follow through on what she wants. Nikki was afraid of what MacKenzie might say, so she didn’t enter the contest to avoid ridicule. As a result, she got something she didn’t want—a job shelving library books. Though shelving library books does turn out to work in Nikki’s favor, these lines should not be taken to mean that giving up on something we want will always work out, even though it sometimes might.

“I see you in biology class,

taking pictures for

the school newspaper, when

you whisper to the depths of my soul,

‘Hold the frog at an angle.’

For it is only you

who can make a photo

of a dissected frog

seem so vibrant.

So alive. Yet dead.”

These lines are from the poem Nikki writes about the moment she realized she liked Brandon. Brandon took a picture of Nikki dissecting a frog in their biology class, and Nikki’s reaction supports the book’s theme about The Volatile Emotional Lives of Teenagers. She has no proof that Brandon’s words or action mean anything special, but she wants to think they do and so convinces herself it’s true. The poem itself is humorous because it combines strong emotions with things like Brandon telling her to hold the dead frog a certain way. The final line may be Nikki realizing she referred to a dead frog as looking alive and then correcting herself.

“She said she owns 983 books and has read most of them twice.

I was like, ‘WOW!’”

Nikki has just met Chloe and Zoey and finished describing Chloe’s tendency to read books about life and kissing that she thinks will help her in high school. The first line shows that Chloe is an avid reader, and the second is both Nikki’s reaction and a glimpse at how to interpret her diary entries. Since the book is written as Nikki’s recap of events in journal format, it is likely that Nikki has shortened conversations and written down only the parts she thinks are important. Nikki also may be shortening how she reacted. She was “like” “wow,” meaning that she was a combination of excited, impressed, amazed, and similar feelings.

“She explained, ‘Now I have a mom AND a stepmother. Having just ONE overbearing mother figure in your life can sometimes be challenging and mentally exhausting. But can you imagine having TWO?! OMG!’”

These lines come after Nikki has described Zoey for the first time. Like Chloe, Zoey reads a lot, but where Chloe seems to read fiction books aimed at teens, Zoey reads self-help books, shown by her explanation of her home life here. The use of words like “overbearing” and “mentally exhausting” imply that Zoey might be summarizing or directly quoting from one of the books she’s read. These lines also give us a glimpse into Zoey’s home life. She has both a mother and a stepmother, meaning that her parents are separated and her dad has remarried.

“Yes, I know!

I should have studied more. But since I spent the entire weekend SULKING, it kind of cut into my study time.”

This passage follows the entire weekend Nikki spent sulking because of the incident with MacKenzie’s birthday party invitation. The incident left Nikki feeling like a dork no one likes, and she resolved to sulk until she felt better. Since sulking doesn’t require any special activities, Nikki could have studied while sulking, but she chose not to. Thus, sulking is not actually an excuse for poor grades. This is another example of a situation where Nikki blames something or someone else for something she just didn’t feel like doing. Rather than taking responsibility for not studying, she blames it on needing to sulk and not wanting to study.

“But as I was walking past MacKenzie’s table, I really wasn’t paying attention. She must have STILL been pretty mad at me about the party invitation and the art competition, because this is what happened: [...] I tripped, and suddenly, everything started moving in slow motion.”

These lines detailing how Nikki tripped in the cafeteria are divided up by one of Nikki’s many doodles. As has been seen in past diary entries, Nikki tends to spin events to make herself look like a victim or to blame other people for something she did, which may extend to her drawings as well. Nikki never specifically states that MacKenzie tripped her, only that she was near MacKenzie’s table when she tripped. Given Nikki’s track record for twisting events, it’s possible that Nikki just tripped and that MacKenzie didn’t trip her. Following the incident, MacKenzie starts shouting mean things, but this is also not proof that she tripped Nikki. MacKenzie has been shown (through Nikki’s perspective) to yell mean things frequently, so there is not enough evidence to suggest that MacKenzie making fun of someone means she deliberately did something to cause the situation.

“I felt like the victim in one of those horror movies where the girl is home alone and hears a knock at the front door.

And when she goes to open the door, everyone in the audience is yelling, ‘DON’T OPEN IT! DON’T OPEN IT!’

But she opens the door anyway because she doesn’t KNOW she’s in a HORROR MOVIE.

Sorry, but I WASN’T that stupid! I KNEW I was trapped in a horror flick, so I DIDN’T open the door to the janitor’s closet.”

This scene follows MacKenzie’s incident in the cafeteria. After Brandon leaves, MacKenzie starts yelling mean things again, and Nikki hides in a janitor’s closet because she’s embarrassed and feels like a loser. When someone knocks on the door, Nikki is sure it’s MacKenzie coming to torment her, so she refuses to open the door. The references to horror movies speak to the common trope in horror of victims choosing to put themselves in danger because they ignore all the warning signs. Nikki has seen enough horror movies to think she knows what will happen if she opens the door to MacKenzie.

“But now that my crush, Brandon, had FINALLY noticed I was alive, there was NO WAY I was going to school completely disfigured like that.”

Nikki has woken up to discover she has a pimple, and these lines exemplify her tendency to make a big deal out of small things, supporting the book’s commentary on The Volatile Emotional Lives of Teenagers. She decides she can’t go to school because she can’t risk Brandon seeing the pimple, and she doesn’t yet realize that if Brandon truly likes her, he won’t care about a pimple. Her use of “disfigured” is an exaggeration, and while it may be accurate for Nikki and a 14-year-old girl's reaction to a pimple, it is also potentially offensive. There is nothing disfiguring about a pimple.

“STAY-HOME-FROM-SCHOOL PHONY VOMIT

1 cup of cooked oatmeal

½ cup of sour cream (or buttermilk ranch dressing or anything that smells like rancid, sour milk)

2 chopped cheese sticks (for chunkiness)

1 uncooked egg (for authentic slimy texture)

1 can of split pea soup (for putrid green color)

¼ cup of raisins (to increase gross-osity)

Mix ingredients and simmer over low heat for 2 minutes. Let mixture cool to warm vomit temperature. Use liberally as needed. Makes 4 to 5 cups.”

This is the recipe for Nikki’s fake vomit that she uses to convince her parents she’s sick and needs to stay home—her solution to not having Brandon see her pimple. The fact that Nikki has this recipe worked out to such detail shows that she’s put a lot of time and effort into it and possibly that she’s used it before. It also contradicts her vehemence about not putting sensitive information in a diary where anyone could read it. If her parents ever decided to flip through her diary, they might see the recipe and realize she used it to get out of going to school.

“Chloe and Zoey actually started jumping up and down and screaming.

I was like, ‘Girlfriends, take a chill pill,

PUH-LEEZE!’

But I just said that inside my head, so no one else heard it but me.”

The girls have just found out that the school librarian will pick three students to go to Library Week. Chloe and Zoey are elated, which reflects both of their love of books. By contrast, Nikki feels like a week dedicated to libraries is lame, which reflects how she only signed up to be a library shelving assistant to avoid ridicule from MacKenzie. The final line of this quote is one Nikki uses often, and it symbolizes both her tendency to write in a diary, as well as her journey toward standing up for herself and taking responsibility. Nikki twists events in her diary to make herself look better, but she hints that she really does know that her versions of events aren’t true. Saying things in her head is one way of not making waves, and it goes against her earlier thought that girls should be smart and strong. Nikki wants to be a certain way, but she isn’t yet. Saying things that may start a conflict only in her head shows she isn’t brave or confident enough to say them out loud.

“Then Zoey whispered, ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson.’ Which, of course, had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with ANYTHING!”

This passage comes during the gym class that Chloe and Zoey spend sulking when the girls should be practicing ballet moves. It’s about to be their turn to perform, and they are panicking because they have no dance prepared. Ralph Waldo Emerson is a poet who rose to prominence during the transcendentalist movement of the 19th century. Though a prolific author, there is no definitive proof that Emerson penned this line. Credit is also given to American author Henry David Thoreau, but the quote actually appears in Meditations in Wall Street by Henry Stanley Haskins. The words themselves mean that what we have inside us is much greater than the external events of our past or future. Zoey seems to be saying that they have the ability to perform ballet regardless of the fact they didn’t practice, but the meaning is lost on Nikki.

“Then I stuck my tongue out at HER and said, ‘Sorry, but I’ve ALREADY not been invited to a birthday party. SO THERE!’

I could thank MacKenzie for that one.”

Nikki’s sister has just drawn a face on the back of her hand, and Nikki got so annoyed with it that she dunked the face in her cereal. Nikki’s sister tries to get back at Nikki by saying the face won’t invite Nikki to its birthday party, to which Nikki says that threat means nothing because someone already did that. This is one of the few times where Nikki blames MacKenzie for something that MacKenzie actually did. It’s true that Nikki was only uninvited because she jumped to the conclusion that MacKenzie was inviting her, but since MacKenzie handed Nikki the invitation, that was not an entirely ridiculous assumption to make at the time. Arguably, Nikki was never invited to MacKenzie’s party in the first place, but the end result is the same—Nikki received an invitation that was then rescinded.

“But the main reason I couldn’t talk to Brandon was because I was suffering from a very severe and debilitating case of RCS, or Roller-Coaster Syndrome. Studies show that it mainly attacks girls between the ages of eight and sixteen.

The symptoms are difficult to describe, but whenever Brandon talks to me, my stomach feels like I’m dropping nine hundred feet at eighty miles per hour. Simply calling it ‘butterflies’ is a common and dangerous misdiagnosis.

Suddenly, and without warning, I feel compelled to throw my hands up in the air (like I just don’t care) and scream… ‘WHEEEEEE!’”

Nikki describes the feeling she gets when she’s near Brandon. With her typical dramatic flair, she compares it to a rollercoaster and even gives it an appropriate name. By using medical terminology to describe it, she makes it sound more serious than it is, and she acknowledges that it is actually what’s commonly known as feeling butterflies in the stomach—a description she feels is too calm. The line “throw my hands up in the air (like I just don’t care)” refers to a line from the 1986 funk and R&B song “Word Up” by the band Cameo.

“The Napkin, germy or not, should be cherished because it was a token of Brandon’s love.

And after reading hundreds of teen romance novels, she had learned that forbidden love, obsession, and sacrifice could be very messy things. Just like snot.”

These lines come while Nikki is telling Chloe and Zoey about the incident in the cafeteria where she tripped and how Brandon gave her a napkin to clean her face. Chloe uses her knowledge of teen fiction here to explain that the napkin is a token of Brandon’s affection, even though it is really just a napkin he gave her because she was covered in food. Overall, these lines pay tribute to commonly used tropes in young adult literature, specifically that the male love interests are overprotective and the female leads are often wilting flowers. Both the male and female leads tend to become obsessed with the other, which almost always leads to difficult situations and impossible decisions. These tropes have begun to lessen in more recent books for teenaged readers, but they were more common at the time Dork Diaries was published, shortly after the Twilight series rose to popularity.

“Unfortunately, none of those shows on the Food Network explained how to control all the critters while you’re trying to cook ’em.

And Brianna was no help WHATSOEVER!

She was SUPPOSED to be my assistant, but she kept swiping the frogs and kissing them to see if they’d turn into princes.”

This passage comes during the chapter where Nikki decides to enter the painting she gave her parents into the art contest. She gave the painting to her parents after her attempts to give them a fancy dinner went awry. From media, Nikki has gathered that fancy dinners consist of frog legs and snails, so she tried to collect these things to cook them because the restaurants that served such food were too expensive. However, collecting frogs turned out to be more difficult than she thought, plus she didn’t actually want to kill the creatures. Nikki’s sister trying to kiss the frogs is a nod to how princes are often turned into frogs in fairy tales and how the spell is broken by a kiss from a princess.

“Only someone as vain as MacKenzie would try to look CUTE while hobbling around on crutches.

She didn’t have a cast on her leg or anything. Just a Hello Kitty Band-Aid below her left knee.

HOW FAKE IS THAT?!!”

These lines are one of the few times when Nikki presents actual evidence of MacKenzie being as vain as she’s described. Up until this point, MacKenzie has been mean and stuck-up, and most of her “terrible” actions have actually been Nikki blaming MacKenzie for things Nikki doesn’t want to take responsibility for. Here, MacKenzie is deliberately angling for attention by using crutches when she likely doesn’t need them, evidenced by how she doesn’t appear to be injured. Nikki is justified in saying MacKenzie is “fake” here.

“Then I overheard Zoey tell Chloe, behind my back, that I worked ‘slower than a constipated snail in an ice storm’ and I needed to speed up since she now had 216 people on the waiting list for next week. I was so NOT doing 216 tattoos in one week!

And I told Zoey that right to her face

In a really friendly way.”

These lines come after Chloe and Zoey invent the book donation program for kids to get tattoos. Since neither of them is actually drawing the tattoos, they have no idea how much work Nikki puts into each design, so they schedule kids for tattoos based on how much time there is in the day, rather than how many Nikki is comfortable doing. They get swept up in the attention and the idea that this project will get them to Library Week, forgetting how much their plan relies on Nikki’s involvement. The final lines of this quotation show Nikki progressing along her character arc. Rather than refusing to do so many tattoos only on her head, she says so out loud, but the addition that she does it in a “really friendly way” means that she isn’t assertive. She’s still pleasing others at the expense of herself and hasn’t yet realized how to stand up for herself.

“I hope the three of them have a blast at MacKenzie’s little party, since they all got invited and

I DIDN’T!!

But it wasn’t like I was jealous of them or anything.

I mean, how totally juvenile would THAT be?!”

Prior to these lines, Nikki sees Chloe and Zoey sitting at MacKenzie’s lunch table. MacKenzie gives Chloe and Zoey invitations to her rescheduled birthday party, which makes Nikki upset and jealous. She’s jealous because she still wants an invitation to MacKenzie’s party, and she’s upset because Chloe and Zoey have left her on her own to soak up attention from the popular kids. The final line of this quotation is another Nikki uses often, typically when she’s trying to convince herself and the reader that she isn’t feeling a certain way because feeling that way would be childish, something Nikki doesn’t want to be seen as.

“It was shockingly painful to see the unique expression of me that had taken more than 130 hours to capture in watercolor so brutally destroyed in a matter of seconds.

But the torn, twisted, and splintered mess on the side of the curb was not nearly as ugly as MacKenzie’s final insult.”

Nikki has just watched her dad run over the painting she accidentally left on the ground. The painting was a huge project, and Nikki worked on it for hours. This passage refers to the differences between creation and destruction. While the painting was a lengthy labor of effort, its destruction took mere moments, which reflects how it is much easier to destroy than create. Even so, Nikki finds MacKenzie’s insults more painful for a couple of reasons. First, Nikki is already hurting from the painting’s destruction, so more meanness from MacKenzie just adds to the pain. Second, MacKenzie just saw something terrible happen to Nikki and can likely tell Nikki is upset. Instead of showing any kind of compassion, MacKenzie keeps being mean, and while Nikki likely didn’t expect compassion, this is still hurtful.

“And, unlike me, he doesn’t obsess about what other people think about him.

I think THAT is probably the coolest thing about him.”

These lines come after Brandon escorts Nikki into the school and out of the rain, following the destruction of her painting. As they walk, Nikki reflects on all the things she likes about Brandon, and this is the final thing on her list. Nikki realizes that she most likes Brandon because he doesn’t care what other people think, and she also completes her character arc by understanding that she does care too much about others’ opinions. This passage shows how we see the truth of ourselves reflected in other people. Nikki notices Brandon not caring about what others think, which makes her realize how much she wishes she didn’t care and prompts her to change how she thinks.