Dork Diaries Tales from a not so Happy Birthday by Rachel Renee Russell is about a girl named Nikki Maxwell and her and her friends Chole and Zoey want to throw a HUGE party for Nikki. She ran to the dog park to see if Brianna was there and all Nikki could see is a big group of people. Instead of renting a DJ, her mom suggested that they rent their neighbors who are a belly dancing group. It sort of made me wish I had written diary entries when I was the character’s age because what she viewed as OMG! I admit it was predictable, so predictable that she mentioned one sentence and I was able to skip to the next few pages to confirm exactly what I had thought would happen.

The funny part was when Nikki's little sister Briana kept baking with her new Princess Sugarplum Easy Bake Oven and made these amazing doggy snacks, great for humans and dongs. As well as the best friends we've come to love as well as the enemies we too hate like Nikki, this book will make you laugh, commiserate and sympathise with the various situations that Nikki finds herself facing! If Nikki and her friends made it through a book without miscommunication causing all sorts of problems I’d be shocked. I had really low expectations, compared to how much I squealed when they revealed the last book's cover. Nikki is back once again with her friends Chloe and Zoey plotting her birthday party which they palm to make a super cool pool party!Meanwhile her rascal little sister Brianna becomes obsessed with baking and even starts up a little dog treat business with Nikki's help as it benefits her and funds her dream as we discover! Throughout this story there are pictures and doodles that make the writing appear to be the diary of Nikki's that is talking all about her birthday party planning and execution. Everything worked out almost perfectly in the end and that's the kind of ending that makes me come back to this series over and over again.

She went downstairs and found a mess in the kitchen from Brianna cooking with her sugarplum baking kit. Nikki asks her mom if she can have the party, but her mom says that she planned a 100 dollar party, which is way cheaper. André and Brandon are also back too and still rivalling it out over Nikki's affections as she finally decides what to do over the summer, band tour or trip to Paris? From “Backyard Picnic”, “Movie Night Pajama Party”, “Music Lover’s Listen Party”, to a random “Scream Fest”! So, um, despite my expectations, I soon found myself laughing and crying at Nikki's "dorkiness" and the strange antics of Miss Bri-Bri, the hero of the story.

This book falls into the contemporary realistic fiction because of the story is realistic for a young girl who is planning a birthday party in today's day and times. I mean half the pages were just pictures so you could at least try a little harder on the few parts that were actual writing. But, when she tries to explain to her best friends, Zoeysha Franklin and Chloe Garcia, that she can't have a birthday, they think she wants to have a pool party, and Chloe and Zoey get so excited that Nikki can't say no to the party. In Part 2, Nikki and her BFFs Chloe and Zoey read a party planning book for really cool birthday party ideas.