Enough With the Fake Diary Novels, Already

Somewhere after Adrian Mole (no one is gonna talk smack about Adrian Mole on the Hairpin) and well before Mia Thermopolis, we reached a point of diminishing returns with the diary-as-framing-device. If it doesn’t actively contribute to the plot (Good Diary: Flowers for Algernon, Secretly Fun Diary: Go Ask Alice, Actual Diary: Samuel Pepys), it becomes the novelistic equivalent of a listicle with commentary (Pot LJ Smith, meet Kettle Nicole). Sometimes there isn’t even an actual diary, the book just gets “(Noun) Diaries” slapped on to make it seem like less of a time investment for the reader. When those books are turned into movies, watch for the shot in the trailer of the female protagonist chewing thoughtfully on a pencil as the sole reference to the original conceit. Or it can come full circle: Carrie Bradshaw’s weird voiceovers while working on her Mac being rebooted as Teen Carrie and her spiral notebooks.

There’s no future in it, for the record. Do tweens even keep physical diaries anymore? The same bendy faux-gold key opens every single diary ever purchased for a girl for Christmas by her aunt, just so we’re clear. Are we looking down the barrel of “The Vampire Tumblrs,” then? I guess “The Vampire Performative Outdoor Moleskines” is still a legitimate option.