Chr*s Browning's Reviews > Hot Mess

If we're being honest, and I think we can be here, it's probably about time that Kinney wraps it for Greg and company - 17 years is a hell of a long time for a kid to be in middle school. Slowly, the books have become more image-focused and less text - I'm not sure there's a spreadhere that doesn't have an image taking up at least 1/3 of a page; this is fundamentally a graphic novel that still sits in the children's novels section of the library - and the relative hit ratio of the jokes and plots has become shaky in the last ten years. That being said, this one is stronger than last year's insofar as that it has an actual plot with a final twist instead of a series of sketches strung together; the vacation books have always excelled in that regard and this one is no different, even if an astute child should guess the twist as soon as the second piece of evidence is presented. Kinney's nods toward the present day also come to the forefront here with the addition of an influencer dog, the sort of side character that would have been viewed as outlandish in 2007 but is now relatively commonplace - the way things change. Anyway, I'm never really sure why I keep reading these and part of my hope for an ending is a hope to move on, but once a ball starts rolling, it takes effort to stop it, so for now Greg and I are bound to each other each fall. So it goes.