In the style of The Wimpy Kid books, Me! (Just Like You, Only Better) by Jim Benton, is written in a diary format of a middle school girl named Jamie Kelly.

We can say the genre of the book as realistic fiction because it reflects real-life issues youngsters face with friends and school, complete with all the conflicts and complexes that only teens can have.

Jamie Kelly is the diary writer and she isn’t having a good time at school because she feels everyone is copying her, and she tries her best to be different from the rest, but it isn’t easy. In this kind of scenario, you can imagine how interesting, hilarious and emotionally-charged her diary would be and what fun it would be reading it.

Jamie is crazy about a band called FATAALD and everyone knows about her craze. But, to Jamie’s horror, instead of remaining as the band’s biggest fan, she finds competition from everyone at school who also start liking them. Jamie then decides to change her taste and starts liking another band, and soon everyone else starts doing the same!

And then there is this girl Angeline, whom everyone likes, but Jamie is so very jealous of her goodness, popularity and beautiful hair. And it irritates Jamie the most when Angeline starts to copy her.

All of us who has been jealous of someone popular at school or found it irritating that we are not the only ones doing something cool, will relate to the story and the problems at school that the characters face. At the end there is a surprise twist, the only thing I didn’t see coming, although most of the other happenings in book were pretty predictable.

The 12th instalment of the series, Me! (Just Like You, Only Better) will only be enjoyed if you don’t mind reading books in this diary format, with hand illustrations drawn as ridiculously as its heroine’s personality.'

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 26th, 2018