I received this book from a goodreads giveaway.

What a cliffhanger!

Max is starting his first year of going to the local middle school, after years of being home-schooled by his grandmother. She's a kindergarten teacher, who believes that nap times and sippy cups are still age appropriate. Max has a hard enough time adjusting to his new school with his anxiety, panic attacks, and a bladder that has the fight or flight response for him (it's always flight). When he has an unfortunate account with "Thug" Thurston, a bully who has it out for him.

When "Thug" shoves him in a locker right before a three day weekend, Max needs to figure out how to escape, and then how to deal with what lies outside the locker.

I think that introducing the topics of anxiety and panic attacks is a good way to show middle schoolers that others have a hard time dealing with things as well. Max is a relatable, and well rounded character with anxiety, wit, snark and courage. Max constantly keeps his sense of humor throughout the book, making his misfortunes into funny anecdotes.

Great illustrations, funny, and an unforgiving cliffhanger!

I feel like this was aiming for Diary of a Wimpy Kid style humour/drawings. Personally I found the story more disturbing than funny but we're also talking about the girl who found Napoleon Dynamite to painful to be funny. Fans of that will probably be fans of this.

Okay, I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. I used to enjoy reading Dork Diaries by the same author, so I assumed I would like this book. Ha, I was wrong.

Mostly, it was kind of stupid to be honest. *gasp* Did I just say that?

Well for one, I was absolutely annoyed with the bathroom humor. Reading that was almost like hearing my oldest brother when he was younger. Ugh! Another thing was that the book caused me to feel a wee bit claustrophobic. Max was locked in his locker a couple of times by the school bully, and it took a while for him to get out both times. I always feel funny when it takes away for someone to be rescued from a small space in fiction, or if a character is going to drown if I don't get to something that will give them more air in a video game. Lastly, the ending felt a bit unrealistic when after Max got out his locker the second time, there were burglars trying to steal the school's newest computers. The situation wasn't per se unrealistic, but how it was written felt stale.

Really, there wasn't much that I liked aside from now finally knowing how Max met Brandon and Max crushing on Erin. So, do I plan to read the other two books? Most likely not. I was truly just annoyed and kind of frustrated while reading this book.

I'm sure the format, humor, and action will make it popular, but I couldn't get past how inauthentic Max and his narration were. He doesn't talk, act, or think like any boy his age I've known.

Very cute story and illustrations. It made me laugh quite a few times.

Max is bullied and once again gets trapped in his locker. But this time it is over the weekend and when he finds a way out he finds thieves in the school!

This book felt like it moved very slowly and didn't really go anywhere at all. I generally like this "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" style book, but I didn't like this one all that much. Generally when I'm reading this kind of book, it tends to fly by and I am done reading it in a couple of days. This one took me weeks to finish because I was just so uninterested. There are a couple of funny parts, but not nearly as many as there should be. Max is a very likable character as well, but he is also kind of forgettable. He certainly doesn't stick with you like Greg Heffley does. The whole storyline was just a little unbelievable for me. It's hard to believe that he would get locked in his locker twice in such a short period of time by the same kid. The robbery storyline came out of nowhere and was completely unbelievable. It felt like it was just thrown in there to give Max something to do. The book ends on a cliffhanger, but even that wasn't enough to make me interested. I am probably not going to continue reading this book series.