My Life in Smiley (Book 1 in Smiley series): It’s All Good by Anne Kalicky
Release: April 3rd 2018
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Source: NetGalley
My Life in Smiley Synopsis:
Follow the middle school misadventures of Max, as recorded in his hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid–style journal that is unconventionally illustrated with the internationally recognized emoticons of the SmileyWorld brand.
Warning: Do not read before 2126! My Life in Smiley: It’s All Good is meant strictly for people of the future, chronicling the life and times of Max, an average eleven-year-old. Annoying siblings, stage fright, love at first sight—can you believe what kids in the 21st century had to deal with? Follow his illustrated diary as has embarks on a great journey—the first year of middle school in France. Max’s journal entries, humorous drawings, and colorful smileys recount his adventures in making new friends, dealing with bullies, and surviving a ruthless P.E. teacher. Along the way, Max starts to figure out how to interact with his peers, and he realizes that at the end of the day, no matter what life throws at him, it’s all good!
Review:
A BIG Thank You to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me a copy of “My Life in Smiley (Book 1 in Smiley series): It’s All Good” by Anne Kalicky in exchange for my review. This is a book similar to the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series where it covers the adventures of an average boy over the period of one year in middle grade. However, I felt this book did not have the same charm or humor that the Wimpy Kid series has.
Here are the reasons that brought down my rating for this book. Firstly, there are some scenes where I felt that the humor is lost in translation. There’s a scene where Max and his English pen pal Conrad share jokes on how they imitate each other’s accents. According to Max, Conrad asks “Where is the Cantine?” with an English accent. Okay, so what? I didn’t understand what was funny. There’s another scene where Max’s dad wants to practice his English on Conrad and asks him “Where is the fromaidge”. What’s that? Perhaps the author should have made a few edits on the jokes for English language readers to enjoy.
Furthermore, there were some scenes that I just couldn’t connect to. For instance, Max’s mom sends him a text message to come for dinner, even though they are in the same house. Is this a new age trend that people follow by texting their children while staying under the same roof? Then there were other scenes that were just repetitious and annoying. Ironically, Max doesn’t even realize how annoying HE is when repeatedly describes how annoying his sister Marion is.
However, the main important reason why I didn’t enjoy this book was due to the illustrations. I felt most of the illustrations were mediocre and done in a hurry. The illustrations in the Wimpy Kid series are very neat, with bold outlines that are consistent and strike the reader. The illustrations in this book were squiggly, scratchy, and had a lot of rough shading that looked very haphazard. Perhaps it was to done to show that it is a journal of an actual 11 year old, but I didn’t enjoy it. The author over uses smileys at times and I started skipping them entirely in an attempt to finish the book.
The only reason I am giving this an average rating is because parts of the book were fun to read. I enjoyed the scenes where Max decides to get coupons as Christmas gifts for his family, and when he sings for the retirement home. In addition to that, I also liked Lisa’s character a lot! I laughed out loud when she obsesses over ‘Ben Didji” and loves receiving appendages as gifts for her birthday. Maybe this book would have been more fun if Lisa was the main character.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book as I thought I would and give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.
