Diary of a Wimpy Kid 14: Wrecking Ball

Book Info

Could this be the end?

Changes are coming for the Heffleys.  When Greg’s great aunt Reba passes away suddenly, the Heffleys find money is coming to them which means major renovations to the house they’ve called a home.  When the renovations begin to go awry, the Heffleys make a big decision that could change their lives forever!

Written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Volume 14:  Wrecking Ball is a young adult comedy book.  The novel is the follow-up to Diary of a Wimpy Kid Volume 13:  The Meltdown and like most of the Wimpy Kid novels, it received massive sales upon release.

I was on the Wimpy Kid boat early on.  I read the first book when it was released and have read every volume since then as they were put out.  The books themselves go up and down.  One book will be better than the next or one book won’t feel true to the stories presented in the other books.  I find this entry in the Wimpy Kids series kind of all over the place.

Greg’s adventures in Narnia

It is generally better when the books have a clear storyline.  This book’s storyline could maybe listed as “home improvement”, but it divides the content into the remodeling and the house sale.  I feel that both storylines could have been one book and that by dividing the time of the novel, it lets them both down.  I imagine a version where the home improvements all build up to a crazy “oops” moment that involves the whole family or a book where the house sale develops into something like how this story ended.

The story also is very Greg centric, and the subject of the story doesn’t necessarily feel like it should be Greg centric.  Generally Rodrick, Greg’s mother and father, Manny, and others play into the story more…but here they seem like shadow characters that don’t have enough play in a storyline involving everyone’s life changing.  I realize in the end, the series is about Greg, and that parents will make decisions without consulting the family, but the stories thus far have developed as a more family centric type of play-out.

Friends to the end?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 14:  Wrecking Ball is a so-so entry in the series.  Greg is a kid and egocentric, but his glee over the death of his father’s aunt is a little much.  There have been worse volumes, but there also have been much, much better.  With the one-a-year schedule of the book, I kind of expect more, and I always hope for a good, concise story that keeps the themes and ideas of the series at the forefront.  Fans of the series will not be disappointed by this entry, but it could be better.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid 14:  Wrecking Ball is followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid 15:  The Deep End.

Preceded By:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 13:  The Meltdown