Best diary books for how it feels to be a teenager

Centred around some typical pre-teen issues, including friendship, loyalty, bullying and sibling relationships, the book also sensitively explores the difficult topics of bereavement and parental separation.

Finn just wants to survive Year 7 but faces cringe and embarrassment at every turn. Follow his hilarious year in this brilliantly funny and relatable illustrated diary format book. 

12-year-old Birdie and her best friend Chloe are experts at overthinking so they make a Happy List to try and help cancel out the anxiety. Written in a diary format and highlighting the challenges of that awkward phase between being a child and becoming a teenager, Birdie’s experiences will resonate with many readers. 

Lily Tripp travels back in time every New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, mean girl Georgia also time travels with her – and this time Lily is her servant! Can Lily cope with being bossed around, and – worse – live without chicken nuggets? A funny diary that teens will very much enjoy.

Welcome to the world of Georgia Nicolson – an angst-ridden teenage girl who keeps a diary to record the rollercoaster of emotions and experiences she faces every day

When reading her mum’s teenage diary, Emily realises that maybe her mum, Lila, did have similar feelings to her. A funny coming-of-age story set in 1997 and 2025. 

17-year-old Cassandra lives an eccentric existence with her bohemian family in a crumbling castle in the English countryside, in this delightful classic coming-of-age story.

Grace micro-manages her life and friends to make sure her online identity is super-attractive and super-cool (#blessed). Written as diary entries, emails and texts, Grace and Erin’s story is unpredictable, revealing and very funny. 

The first book in the Adrian Mole series, this was a publishing sensation back in the 1980s, but still has the power to entertain pre-teen, teen and even adult readers, and make them double up with laughter.

Lottie Brooks is just starting secondary school and she’s just about ready to die of embarrassment – she hasn’t got a bra, her hair is totally wrong, and the whole class has started calling her Cucumber Girl. Just how cringe can one year be? A hilarious tween diary from Katie Kirby.

Spud gets a scholarship to a smart boys’ school where he soon joins in with a mad bunch of boys – the Crazy Eight.

Now widely regarded as one of the most important pieces of historical literature of all time, Anne Frank’s diary is a poignant and powerful insight into the life of a child in hiding from the Nazi occupation.

Funny and heart-warming, this diary is an ode to celebrating yourself just as you are.

Jo’s terrified about bringing friend Tina home to meet her parents and revealing that she lives above a Chinese takeaway. In reading Jo’s diary, we understand the tension within her family, as well as the racism and homophobia in the world around her.

‘I’m aware that keeping a diary is considered part of the female domain, but in my life, with the family and friends I’m stuck with, it is the only reason I haven’t run away and gone to live in the woods…’