Aug 10, 2012: “My Stupid Journal” is the diary of Daisy Tannenbaum, a precocious eleven-year-old who, while living with her aunt and guardian in Paris, gets tangled up in an old mystery surrounding Marie Antoinette’s long lost royal diamonds. As may be clear, the plot of this twisting and turning narrative is quite intricate. Although each episode is amusing on its own (mostly because of the sly wit and sarcasm of the main character Daisy), as a long-time reader of this blog I find that it is best consumed consistently and in order.
The most fun part of "My Stupid Journal" is that it is delivered through the eyes of a pre-teen with an overactive imagination. As a result, you get lines like this one in which Daisy describes her angry aunt by writing, “She gave me a look that would broil cheese.” Yet you also get beautiful ruminations from a sort of naïve American stuck in Paris, like this description of a rainy Parisian sidewalk: “Tempers were flaring. If you nicked someone’s umbrella by accident they were liable to screech at you. We passed a man, soaked to the bone, beating a reluctant umbrella against a signpost. Those without umbrellas huddled under the awnings of cafés or in archways, save for the young and impatient, who dashed on, hair matted, glasses fogged, sliding and dodging, knocking the unwary off slim sidewalks, leaving a trail of indignation in their wake.” As these excerpts demonstrate, and Fiona Gregory writes in her own review of the blog, the control and manipulation of language in “My Stupid Journal” is at once amusing and wonderfully poetic.
My final note is that almost as a bonus, this blog is incredibly fun for anyone who has visited, lived in, or just dreamed of Paris! Thrown in are beautiful descriptions of Parisian life—the corner cafés and the metro routes Daisy takes as she traipses about—as well as snippets of the French language that add flair and authenticity.
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