Middle Grade Monday: The Dirt Diary by Anna Staniszewski

e-ARC, 336 pages
Release Date: January 7, 2014
Published by: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Stand-alone
Source: NetGalley (A huge thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Jabberwocky for providing me with this galley for a just and honest review.)
For fans of: Family, Realistic Fiction, Sparkly Covers, MG

     After her parents' divorce, eighth-grader Rachel Lee joins her mother's new housecleaning business, which has her scrubbing bathrooms in her more popular classmates' homes and learning useful secrets.

*MY THOUGHTS*

      When Sourcebooks Jabberwocky emailed me and asked if I wanted to participate in a blog tour for this I said yes simply because I liked the cover. Then I read the synopsis and I knew that I did the right thing. This book is extremely funny and totally realistic. Plus it totally makes me feel for the author because she said that Rachel is a little bit of her, and trust me, Rachel doesn't have it easy.
     When I say she doesn't have it easy, that's an understatement. This chick has the worst luck ever. And to make it worse, she is the victim of a bully. And her bully is relentless. From gluing her locker shut to sprinkling dirt all over her floor just so that Rachel can clean it up. And to top it off, Rachel isn't just the luckiest person in the world. Her parents just split and they don't have much money so her and her mother had to open a cleaning business.
     With the cleaning business its going really well. Until Rachel gets herself into a hole that's really hard to get out of. She is getting paid to spy on someone, she loses her best friend, and she assumes something and it's nowhere close to the truth. She doesn't seem like a bad kid, but fighting back is always a bad idea. Just let it the stop, or go tell an adult. And if it doesn't work, you just ignore them.
     I liked that although this is about this chick going through a bunch of emotions and things, there is still so much fun in this book! I loved that she was a baker and even more so that she was an emotional baker because I am too! And then there was the fact that she was so absolutely funny. Her cuss words were like "Oh Avocado Dip!" lmao It was funny.
     Lastly, I loved how much Rachel grew up in the end. She may have been acting like a really small little girl in the beginning, but in the end it was obvious that she had matured. She went and apologized to everyone she had hurt a long the story.
    This novel is a prefect coming of age book for Middle Graders. It shows that family issues, broken hearts, bullies, and best friend fights can sometimes feel like the end of the world, but there are also effective ways to fix them.
Overall, I give this

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