Even if you hate reading and avoid libraries like the plague, I’m sure you’ve heard of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The series spans a total of 19 main books (18 are currently released, #19 came out in late October, but I haven’t read it yet), with numerous spin-offs. The books follow Greg Heffley, a middle school boy navigating the epic highs and lows of suburban life, however, the plotlines get more and more outlandish as you progress further in the series. 

Which leads me to my question: Is Greg Heffley an unreliable narrator?

It’s a commonly accepted belief that Greg is a sociopath; someone with a lack of empathy and a tendency to not learn from their mistakes. But when his stories get to the point where his school is at risk of shutting down, so the principal rents out classrooms and bees attack the students during a standardized test, it gets a little harder to believe. Obviously, it’s a children’s book. But at some point, the storylines get a little too absurd. So is Greg telling the truth, or is he just exaggerating his own life? The book is his diary, after all. 

Since its release in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger has been banned in many schools. Strikingly similar to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the book is a retelling of events from the perspective of a teenage boy. Holden Caulfield is a famously unreliable narrator, with his skewed perception of events and interactions with people helping create a growing feeling of being lost. If you aren’t afraid of spoilers, continue! But if you are planning to read the generational novel that is Catcher in the Rye, come back another time.

Alright. So, Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of his high school for failing all but his English class, and this isn’t the first time that it’s happened. He leaves school without telling his family anything, and the story follows him as he roams 1950s New York City. He gets into all sorts of trouble and spends the majority of his money on alcohol. And although Holden acts tough and as if he draws the attention of people (especially the older women he claims to have attracted), that probably isn’t the case as he falls deeper and deeper into a depression. Holden ends his story reminiscing on the people he’d met and promising to do better. We know Holden is an unreliable narrator because of how he perceives people’s actions and the world. His outlook is incredibly pessimistic and he withholds information from the reader. An example? The death of his brother, Allie. Holden doesn’t mention anything about the loss of his brother, (which would help justify his behavior), until later in the book when he becomes more comfortable with the reader. And even then, it’s not a big thing delved into. It’s a passing comment. Is there evidence of Greg doing the same?

Yes and no. The timeline of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is confusing, and after a while, Greg stops sharing information that could clue the reader into his age. But that doesn’t make Greg a reliable narrator. If we don’t know his age, could Greg really be an old man recounting his middle school escapades? And if we go with that line of reasoning, could the later books just be figments of our narrator’s imagination that he thought would make for a good story? Oh, and they’re both middle children with challenging younger siblings.

I’m onto you, Jeff Kinney. 

In reality, Diary of a Wimpy Kid isn’t a middle-grade version of Catcher in the Rye. But it’s interesting to make connections between two stories that are seemingly unrelated. What if Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown is just a preschool-level retelling of Animal Farm? And while most of these connections are likely coincidental, everything and everyone is connected in one way or another.