Review: My Mad Fat Teenage Diary

This teenage diary wasn’t what I expected, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing

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I bought this having watched the excellent TV show on Channel 4, but then I had a look at the comments on Goodreads and was a bit apprehensive. The main criticism was that the book was nothing like the series, and it’s true: the book is different.

Much of what made the series so good is missing: Rae’s social worker; her friends back at the hospital; her burgeoning relationship with Fin. She’s also younger in the series and it’s set in the early 90s rather than 1989. In the diary she’s on a scholarship to a private school, creating all kinds of wealth issues, which aren’t in the series. Several other elements are present and correct: the bitchy best friend; the weight issues; the sex-mad teenager-iness; the visit to a rave.

Rae’s mental illness was much more visible in the series. In the diary it’s hardly mentioned at all. In fact she explains that she doesn’t want to talk about it because she doesn’t really know how to deal with it.

I challenge anyone who’s ever been a teenage girl to not identify with Rae on some level

But once you accept these differences, the diary is actually a very good read. In the series Rae was always the ‘good guy’, but in the diary she can be selfish, thoughtless, mean, even cruel at times. Often she doesn’t realise. But it makes her more real. In fact for all her mental health problems, Rae is a normal teenage girl, with body issues, love life issues, arguments with her friends and her mum. She’s just trying to find her identity in this world, and I challenge anyone who’s ever been a teenage girl to not identify with her on some level.