Introducing: Jack Samsonite, a nearly-16 British teenager. His mission: to pass his GCSEs, pull the girl of his dreams, and not get beaten up. Wish him luck.

Diary-style novels are always hard to review. Always. Take a look at the other reviews I have made of books like Spud and Adrian Mole – they’re short. It’s very hard to comment on a diary, for me at least. So I shall do my best with One Seriously Messed Up Week in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Jack Samsonite, hereafter referred to One Seriously Messed Up Week!

Unlike many diary-style novels, One Seriously Messed Up Week only covers a week (most diary-novels cover a year!) and at just over 300 pages, a lot of stuff would have to fill up that week! And there is a lot of stuff to cover, enough to make it exciting! Jack Samsonite, being the typical “in-betweener” (ie. neither popular nor outcast), has a lot to worry about – not the least being beaten up by the “Reaper”, the phantom hard-man…

But the most exciting thing about One Seriously Messed Up Week is the comedy. Tom Clempson doesn’t bother with waiting a while before unleashing all hell of self-deprecating humour (or in this case, character-deprecating) and crude jokes. Hell, the first line starts with “nob ache”, much to the delight of my English class (we’re all boys…). Never before has the male weakness been approached in such a direct way!

Tom Clempson shows such a knowledge of the modern teenage mind that I wonder if he didn’t have help by a teenage nephew. Either that or times haven’t changed for 20 years. One Seriously Messed Up Week will have you spluttering on the Tube, uselessly trying to suppress your guffawing in the library and giggling under the bed covers. Most of all, it’ll have you rooting for Jack as he stumbles through a rather eventful week of his life…