12 books like Lottie Brooks
Lottie Brooks works because it's a diary written by someone convinced her life is a catastrophe, with doodles in the margins and a friendship crisis on every other page. These picks keep that voice going: illustrated diaries, group-chat comedies, and warm school stories about falling out and making up.
Updated September 2026
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Illustrated diaries kept by a mortified narrator
Dork Diaries by Rachel Renée Russell 2009
The same doodled diary format with a heroine convinced everyone is watching her fail, set in an American school with a longer-running cast and a much bigger pile of sequels to work through.
The Accidental Diary of B.U.G by Jen Carney 2021
Lists, drawings and a nine-year-old narrator who reports her family's chaos deadpan; the humour is gentler and the reading age slightly younger.
The Worst Class in the World by Joanna Nadin 2020
Shares the classroom-disaster comedy and cartoon illustrations, but it's a boy's-eye view in short chapters for readers still building stamina.
Vi Spy: Licence to Chill by Maz Evans 2021
Keeps the illustrated, jokes-per-page energy and the embarrassing-parents theme, though the embarrassment here involves actual espionage.
Told in messages, notes and group chats
Cringe Club by Emily-Jane Clark 2024
Friendship politics play out through group chats and public humiliation exactly as Lottie's do; the format is almost entirely screens rather than diary entries.
The Bolds by Julian Clary 2015
Not a diary at all, but it matches Lottie's taste for daft jokes, puns and a straight-faced narrator describing something absurd.
Pizazz by Sophy Henn 2020
A fed-up girl narrating her life directly to the reader with comic asides and drawings, with superheroics standing in for Year Eight.
Best friends drifting, mean girls and getting them back
The Amazing Edie Eckhart by Rosie Jones 2021
Also about a new school separating you from your best friend and having to build a life without her, told warmly rather than as a running disaster report.
What's New, Harper Drew? by Kathy Weeks 2022
An anxious girl managing family chaos and shifting school alliances, with a narrator who tries to organise everyone else instead of panicking.
Girl (In Real Life) by Tamsin Winter 2022
Same territory of humiliation, friendship and parents who don't get it, pitched a couple of years older and with a serious thread under the comedy.
Classic teenage diaries for when she's ready to level up
Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison 1999
The diary voice Lottie descends from, with the same obsessive cataloguing of embarrassment; the content is firmly teenage, so save it for a year or two.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend 1982
A self-pitying diarist convinced of his own tragedy, though the jokes work on two levels and much of the adult world sails over the narrator's head.
If you also liked…
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan
- 1984 by George Orwell
Questions
- Is Dork Diaries too similar, or is that the point?
- It's deliberately close: doodled diary, school cast, friendship dramas. If she liked the format more than anything else, it's the safest next step.
- What if she's not quite ready for teenage content?
- Stick with The Accidental Diary of B.U.G., The Worst Class in the World or The Amazing Edie Eckhart, and hold Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging back — that one has snogging, bras and boys front and centre.
- She reads these in two nights. Anything with more to chew on?
- Girl (In Real Life) keeps the funny voice but has a real emotional plot underneath, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ rewards a slower reader who enjoys spotting what the narrator misses.