The Scott Fenwick Diaries Published by Simon and Schuster on July 22, 2025 Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Humorous Stories, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes / Adolescence & Coming of Age
Pages: 272
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Goodreads
In the tradition of Judy Blume, a contemporary coming-of-age middle-grade comedy for teens and tweens with the honest truth about the angst and uncertainty
In this laugh-out-loud, feel-good sequel to Worldwide Crush, superfan Millie grows out of her celebrity crush and lands awkwardly in something even more dramatic: her first ever IRL middle school crush.
Is Millie ready to graduate from posters on the wall to a living, breathing boy who sits next to her in Social Studies? By herself, absolutely not. But with a little help from her friends—maybe! Feeling comically unprepared for this next phase of middle school, Millie calls on an adorkable cast of characters for instructions and support: Shauna, her wise bestie who uses her Magic 8 Ball for advice; her two cranky grandmas, who call cute boys “foxes”; Pringles, her beloved bulldog; and her bunny-loving neighbor, Tibbs, who dedicates herself to getting Millie an invite to the bar mitzvah of her dreams. But when a secret game of Truth or Dare at the bar mitzvah leads to her ultimate fantasy—Millie and Scott swaying together on the dance floor—the moment is ruined in humiliating fashion. And Millie doubts she’ll ever be ready for real-world middle school love after all.
Amidst a whirlwind of embarrassing family shenanigans and side-splitting missteps, Millie learns to trust her own instincts, grow up on her own terms, and never, ever sacrifice her friends for a crush.
Review:
Just as she did with her debut, “Worldwide Crush,” author Kristin Nilsen has wormed her way into my adolescent self and expressed all my fears, feelings, questions, longings, and roller-coaster emotions — this time relating not to a celebrity crush but to a REAL LIFE one. Now begins the note passing, texting, waving back and forth in the hall at school, and even while shopping at Target. They have a lot in common; however, sometimes translation gets lost. In this laugh-out-loud new novel, author Kristin Nilsen combines middle school love life with hilarious viewpoints, quirky family members, lovable pets, and life questions. Kristin knows how to take a middle grade novel and channel you as an adult to revisit your emotional roller coaster ride of emotions as we all navigate our first real-life crush. All the awkward feels, the embarrassment of our families, and navigating middle school life. It was a delight to read.
About Kristin Nilsen
Kristin Nilsen grew up in California and Minnesota, listening to the radio, watching Brady Bunch after school, and reading after bedtime. Vinyl records were still a thing and she had her very own collection of albums in her bedroom — like ABBA, The Bee Gees and the soundtracks to Grease and Star Wars. This is where she met all of her first crushes; they sang to her from the radio, her record player and the TV and eventually decorated the walls of her room with posters torn out of magazines.
When the lights went out at bedtime, Kristin would pretend to fall asleep and sneak a flashlight under the covers to read just one more chapter. She grew up in a neighborhood full of readers, friends who’d call her up and say, “you wanna come over and read?” And then she moved to a new town and felt like a huge nerd because no one else read as much as she did. That’s when Judy Blume became her best friend; she read every Judy Blume book in the library – even the naughty ones written for adults – because all the people in Judy’s books seemed to have the same problems she did. Kristin finally got to meet Judy Blume as an adult, when she was writing Worldwide Crush, and told Judy that her influence on Worldwide Crush was undeniable. “If this book gets published,” Kristin said, “you can consider yourself one of its creators.”
Kristin’s upcoming book, The Scott Fenwick Diaries (on sale 7/22/25 from SparkPress) is the sequel to Worldwide Crush and Nilsen’s second middle grade novel.
You can hear Kristin every week on the Pop Culture Preservation Society podcast where she talks about the totally crushworthy pop culture nuggets of the 70s and 80s with her co-hosts Carolyn and Michelle. As the show’s Pro Crushologist (aka Andy-Gibb-ologist), her job legitimately involves studying why she once fantasized about being married to Andy Gibb and walking around their shared apartment in their bathrobes.
Today, Kristin lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city of lakes, with her husband and her chocolate goldendoodle, Axl Rose Nilsen (fur brother to her human child, Liam, who is in college but somehow still has dirty clothes on the floor of his old room).
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