Changes

|title=The Donut Diaries: Revenge is Sweet: Book Two

|author=Anthony McGowan

|reviewer=John Lloyd

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=9780552564397

|pages=288

|publisher=Corgi

|date=January 2012

|summary=A very enjoyable, if scatological, adventure for our slightly podgy hero and his friends.

}}

Only the other week I was reviewing and enjoying a book styled as a young lad's diary, where the greatest insult was to call someone a doughnut. Here, the hero of a book styled as a young lad's diary, calls himself Donut. He does eat a lot of them, for one, and as a result has a bit of a muffin-top going on. His schoolfriends call him Donut too - those few friends he could gather together into a gang of outcasts and oddments in the first book of this series. In this first sequel, covering a couple of months in his second term, there is a very nasty problem, as Donut is framed for leaving unsavoury messages about the school.

If you don't want your son - or daughter, for this is jolly and engaging and humorous enough for either - to read copious jokes about farts, fart-smells, poo, dads who spend their days on the lav (for some reason unknown to me), turn them away from this book now. You might from that work out what those unsavoury leavings in the school are, and you'd be right.

I doubt many will find it surprising - it's patently obvious who is behind Donut's troubles, but the journey from beginning to end is perfectly sprightly, enjoyable and witty enough. It might cause a couple of crossed eyebrows - the hand-less PE teacher, with his various attachments, for one. Girls might not like the way Dermot picks on his sisters, but they will see the reality in the situation. All-told, it might seem exceedingly crappy, but is by no means crap.

The book I mentioned, where doughnut is an insult? It was [[May Cause Irritation (The World of Norm) by Jonathan Meres]], and is equally worth your consideration.

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