I especially enjoyed the Magic 8-Ball section of the book. That being said, the book isn't all bad, it has some pretty interesting and original gimmicks. I don’t know if it’s because Jeff Kinney just isn’t as good at writing this type of comedy, or if it’s because the series simply isn’t suited for this kind of story. The issue with this is that it’s a lot more boring. Greg has become more of a “straight man”, just a really evil one. Compared to the first book, most of the problems Greg finds himself in are situations outside of his control, so now the comedy comes less from Greg’s hypocrisy and foolishness, and more from the stupidity of those around him. This book is also a lot less linear than the first one, which hurts the pacing quite a bit in my opinion. This book spends most of its time putting Greg in bad situations and seeing how he lives through them.
