Dork Diaries: Puppy Love Vol. 10

This is exactly the kind of book I recommend to people who say they don't read anymore. It's accessible, it's moving, and it's proof that fiction can say things that feel genuinely true about how love and loss and healing actually work. Renee Rachel Russell has real talent. I'll be reading everything they write.

Started Dork Diaries: Puppy Love on a Saturday evening and didn't come up for air until I'd finished it. Renee Rachel Russell's writing has a warmth and rhythm that pulls you in immediately, and the emotional journey the book takes you on is both comforting and quietly profound. One of my favourite reads of the year.

There's a tenderness to this book that I found completely disarming. Renee Rachel Russell writes about love and heartbreak with real honesty — no clichés, no easy resolutions, just beautifully observed human experience. I hugged my copy when I finished it, which I realise sounds odd, but there it is. Five stars.

What I appreciate most about Dork Diaries: Puppy Love is that it's hopeful without being unrealistic. Renee Rachel Russell understands that healing and moving forward is messy and slow and non-linear, and the book honours that truthfully. I needed this story more than I knew I did when I picked it up. Wonderful.

I don't usually cry at books but this one got me completely. Renee Rachel Russell has written something that is genuinely moving without being manipulative — the emotions feel earned, the characters feel real, and the story left me thinking about it for days afterwards. Beautiful in every sense.