The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

Okay, so this book is predominantly about the struggles of a boy going through puberty but its depiction of the magnetic older characters of Bert and Queenie in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home are among the funniest scenes in the book. 

Of every book I’ve ever read, it remains one of the most hilarious and if you’ve read it previously, it’s well worth another visit.

No list of narrator-driven novels would be complete without at least one diary entry. Yet this one holds a particular place in my heart. The struggles of a 13 and ¾-year-old boy who believes he is an intellectual and therefore doesn’t fit in, is rich with humor. Adrian doesn’t understand much of what is happening around him. His innocence is revealed perfectly through his diary entries. His naïveté is charming and hilarious, and transported me back to my own youth, thinking I knew so much, yet understanding so little. A joy to read and re-read. 

Adrian Mole is a few years older than I am so I devoured his diaries as a young teen in the 1980s, and then followed him through his twenties, thirties, and forties in the sequels. My tween son has just read the first two books and discovering them again through his eyes has been a joy (though explaining some of the oddities of the eighties was less fun: “What are the Falklands, Mum?”). How brilliantly clever to tell a story through the eyes of a character who knows much less than the reader. And how totally hilarious, too. 

This book is very famous in the UK. Perhaps not so famous worldwide, but if you haven’t read it, you should! It’s a hilarious account of a very imperfect family. Set during the 1980s, it’s a very interesting history lesson too.