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49 pages 1 hour read

Rachel Renée Russell

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

Rachel Renée RussellFiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2009

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Important Quotes

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“Absolutely no one writes their most intimate feelings and deep, dark secrets in a diary anymore! WHY?!

Because just one or two people knowing all your BIZ could completely RUIN your reputation.

You’re supposed to post this kind of juicy stuff online on your BLOG so MILLIONS can read it!!!”


(Chapter 1, Page 10)

This passage comes after Nikki’s mom gives her the diary she’s writing in, and it introduces Nikki’s somewhat contradictory nature. Nikki thinks diaries are out of style and that it could be life-ruining to write down her thoughts where someone might find them and expose them to people who could destroy her social life. She then says the complete opposite when she states that these details should be posted online for everyone to read, which would be putting her diary entries where anyone could read them and potentially use them to destroy her social life. These lines may also be the author’s commentary on the rise of internet journaling in the 2000s and how people often did post details and secrets online for everyone to read.

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


(Chapter 2, Page 13)

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