DIARY OF A NERD

A besotted middle schooler invents an alter ego to hook up with a certain girl. It doesn’t go well.

Yearning for dreamboat classmate Lauren, self-proclaimed 12-year-old nerd Phil Dickens reinvents himself as a more athletic cousin named Mike, builds a bogus Facebook profile, and asks her out. Being, evidently, face blind, she agreeably hangs with him—until the deception inevitably unravels and she instantly professes her nerd aversion. No problem: Phil just as quickly acquires a new crush known only by the sobriquet “Big Mind Kill.” She is the dark-haired, brainier, intense polar opposite of blond, ponytailed Lauren. Phil unilaterally invites her to join his team for an upcoming STEM competition, and it’s on to an easy win in the climactic tournament. Along with cramming dizzying sheaves of different block-print typefaces onto every lined page, this tortuous narrative has little to offer readers beyond hand-wringing pronouncements about the hazards of lying and wearisome introductions to various nerdy icons from Bill Gates and Peter Parker to the casts of Big Bang Theory and The Goonies. The cast’s faces are all paper white in line and wash drawings that are, considering the deliberately rumpled page design, improbably expert.

A font-happy flop.