Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer
Number	18
Release date	October 24th, 2023
Author	Jeff Kinney
Illustrator	Jeff Kinney
Preceded by	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde
Succeeded by	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Book 19

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer is the 18th book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. It was released on October 24th, 2023, following the release order of the previous books. The cover was revealed on May 17th, 2023. The cover shows Greg at his desk, pen in hand with his head popped out to reveal his lack of a brain (hence the book's name) and trash and a broken pencil, and it is clear that he is at school.

Main Characters

• Greg Heffley
• Principal Bottoms (main antagonist)
• Rodrick Heffley
• Manny Heffley
• Susan Heffley
• Frank Heffley
• Rowley Jefferson

Synopsis

In No Brainer, book 18 of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series from #1 international bestselling author Jeff Kinney, it’s up to Greg to save his crumbling school before it’s shuttered for good.

Up until now, middle school hasn’t exactly been a joyride for Greg Heffley. So when the town threatens to close the crumbling building, he’s not too broken up about it.

But when Greg realizes this means he’s going to be sent to a different school than his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, he changes his tune. Can Greg and his classmates save their school before it’s shuttered for good? Or is this the start of a whole new chapter for Greg?

Plot

April

Greg starts off by wishing that he could detach his brain from his body and let it attend middle school for him. However, since he is currently stuck in the situation where he can’t, that means he has to attend middle school instead. Greg’s issue with school is how lengthy the day is as hardly any of that time is spent on actually learning. Greg complains about how as of recently, his school has been deteriorating in quality as some of his teachers don’t even educate students on proper information. Examples include his former Latin teacher, Mr. Leyton, who taught his students nonsense the entire time and his Geometry teacher, Ms. Pritchard who uses her new smart board instead of teaching the subject. Once Greg’s grade took a standardized exam last month, it was very difficult since almost all of the subjects had questions about lessons that they had never covered in class. So it wasn’t surprising that when the school's standardized exam results were revealed that the scores were the lowest in the state, in fact they were so inferior that the school hit the headlines. Since the superintendent felt overburdened to make changes, he decided to fire Mrs. Mancy as head principal and request the old principal, Mr. Bottoms, to come out of retirement. Greg is surprised that Mr. Bottoms agreed but he is rooting for him to turn things around based on the situation so far.

Mr. Bottoms quickly begins establishing major changes and any class that doesn’t educate anything on the standardized exam has been cut such as Home Ec. A lot of classes have gotten more serious such as Science which isn’t educating about gross topics anymore. However, Greg states that this doesn’t mean that what they’re studying isn’t repulsive as Mr. Rask just announced a dissection unit on tapeworms. Mr. Bottoms introduces a new program called the High Flyers Club in order to better motivate students to achieve better grades; however, this only encourages even more cheating, and the school has to bring in Clarence “Cheater” Cluster as a result. Greg mentions that if the school really wanted to penetrate on how deception can ruin pupil’s lives, they should’ve mentioned Larry Mack, the school’s former principal. Greg explains that after he was the principal for a decade, he got renowned for his car dealerships, causing the school to get renamed after him. However, news journalists discovered that he had been purloining from the school in order to establish his own business and as a result he got arrested during one of his disposals.

Mr. Bottoms introduces a new policy where pupils need to require a hall pass in order to get out of class. However, when pupils exploit this system to produce their own forgery hall passes, Mr. Bottoms makes it so that the teacher’s hall passes have to be distinctive. After the new bathroom rule falls short, things get worse than ever in there and Greg gets accused of destroying a urinal handle despite it being Marty Vinson. Greg has to fill out a self-evaluation form about it which is another new policy of Mr. Bottoms. When Mr. Bottoms cancels Fudgedogs, a popular menu item of tofu dogs covered in chocolate, due to it causing exam results to decline, pupils begin a riot over all the new changes at school. After failing to stop the backlash, Mr. Bottoms reaches a compromise with the Student Council to permit one and a half Fudgedogs to each pupil per day. Following Larry Mack’s arrest, Greg mentions that his son, Larry Mack Junior, relinquished his education to pursue his father’s car dealerships. Greg states that if he could repay his father’s purloined money to the school, it could actually help turn things around. But ever since then his family moved out of the state, and he probably hasn’t reflected on the school in a while.

Greg explains that in order to cut down on it’s budget, the school has recently began limiting the amount of school supplies a pupil can use and scrimping on electricity. Another budget cut the school decided to do was cancel their contract with the exterminator and appoint the janitors to get rid of all the bugs. However this has only brought about a bigger problem as ever since then, the school has been infested with rodents and trying to get rid of them has caused a pretty dangerous situation; the school has set up mouse traps all around the building and pupils have to be very cautious of them especially in the library. As a result of Mr. Bottoms not providing the raise that he promised during Spring, a few teachers decide to quit on the spot. However despite that, to save more money, the school decided to lay-off even more its staff and the people who were the most affected by this were the janitorial staff who got superseded by a Cleaning robot purchased from a local grocery store. Pupils were initially uncomfortable about having a faceless machine roam the hallways, prompting Mr. Bottoms to attach a pair of googly eyes on it, which didn’t make things any better. Greg believes that was a mistake as ever since then it has started to exhibit humanoid behaviors and abscond its job to take classes with other students.

May

After Mr. Bottoms realizes that his new methods to economize money have backfired, he starts scheming ways to earn money. One of his ideas involve adding a new Platinum tier to the High Flyers club costing a membership fee of $12:99 a month to join. Mr. Bottoms also gives consent to all types of corporate sponsorship deals around school causing it to feel like Times Square. However, all these tactics to earn money are insignificant in contrast to what the school is really persisting on: the naming rights to the building. After decreasing the offering price multiple times, the school finally finds an offer from their former exterminator whose contract they cancelled a couple of weeks back. The exterminator organizes a press conference to declare the deal, but nobody is excited that the new name is going to be 1-800-DED-BUGS middle school. After the PTA complains about all of the new changes to raise money at school, Mr. Bottoms decides to rent out the entire C wing as a new strategy. However, the C-wing renters often unintentionally distract classes, and this causes the school to feel more condensed than ever.

The PTA holds their annual auction to raise money for the school and this time they asked students to help volunteer during the event. Since Susan is a secretary of the PTA, she persuaded Greg into volunteering. Greg explains that the first part of the event was the silent auction where parents could bid on various different prizes. Greg was hoping that his parents would bid on something cool like a pair of jet skis but the only prize they bid on was a wellness basket. The next part of the event was the live auction where they recruited a professional auctioneer to induce people to bid on special prizes. The final item of the event was Principal for the Day where a student gets to take charge of the school for a few hours. Susan outbids everyone for the prize, and it ultimately comes down to her and Mrs. O'Malley. Since they both had a rivalry over each other for PTA secretary, this bidding war was personal to them and eventually Mrs. O’Malley relinquishes, causing Susan to win.

The next morning, Greg begs Susan not to attend school, but since the auction prize cost her a fortune, she disregarded it. Greg figures that Mr. Bottoms would potentially allow him to tag along with him for a couple hours, but he instead just gave him the necessary supplies to be principal before quickly leaving. While signing off checks, Greg gets reported to the boy’s bathroom for a sink being dismantled off the wall and he has to accede to a bunch of the janitor’s working demands in order to get them to repair it. Greg gets reported to the weekly staff meeting by the school secretary and he immediately determines that this wasn’t going to be a very fun time. The staff immediately starts listing their complaints about the school and Greg has to establish a rule where they have to hold a school stapler in order to talk. However after they start brawling over the stapler, Greg has to try out a different approach of choosing who to speak. Greg calls on Mrs. Shelburn first who complains about Ms. Pritchard receiving a new computer instead of her. This causes them to both fight about it and when Greg tries to resolve the issue by instructing them to split the laptop in half because he thought one would then allow the other to keep it, they take the statement literally and actually do it. Once the school staff meeting ends, Greg gets reported to a special assembly where he, as the principal, has to kiss a pig as part of one of the auction prizes. By then, Greg has his fill of being in charge and so he leaves a note on the school secretary’s desk, permitting him to leave early.

After being principal for the day, Greg was glad to be a regular student again, but he learns, from The Student Crier, that the state is potentially going to shut the school down unless the standardized exam results improve. Mr. Bottoms apparently kept this confidential for a while to avoid causing panic before the final exam. The only reason why the news was distributed early was because one of the journalists of the student newspaper, Freddie Larkin, was faking injuries so he could eavesdrop on the school conference room. All students will be split up into two separate schools across the state if the school shuts down. One of the schools is Fulson Tech, a high quality modern middle school which was opened up last year, and the other is Slacksville Middle School which is right beside the state dump. The common consensus is that students who get transferred to Fulson Tech are all set unlike Slacksville. The registration list for the new schools gets publicized onto the school bulletin board and Greg is pleased to be transferred to Fulson Tech. Unfortunately, his best friend Rowley is registered to Slacksville Middle School and Greg promises to bring him leftover prime rib from the Fulson Tech cafeteria. However, when Alex Aruda’s parents enroll him into a boarding school, the list gets flipped upside down and Greg now has to transfer to Slacksville Middle School instead. Greg tries convincing his parents to transfer him to a private school just like Fulson Tech, but his efforts fail as it is considered too expensive.

Greg realizes that his only option to stop this from happening was to study for the exam and during the weekend, he hits the books. During the lead up to the standardized exam, students are very anxious about it and so they start doing all sorts of absurd things for luck such as rubbing a kid named Lucky’s head and making offerings to Larry Mack’s statue. Once the standardized exam begins, Greg struggles to pay attention due to the instantaneous amount of disruptions happening at once. Greg realizes that the pupils who got registered to Fulson Tech weren’t even going to try at all and glancing at Jenna Healy’s answer sheet just proved it. An hour into the exam, a huge flock of bees invades the classroom, from one of the c-wing renters, and everyone has to evacuate the classroom. The bees manage to infiltrate the school and everyone has to wait outside while the fire department sorts out the situation. Despite the fact that the classrooms got invaded by bees, the state refuses to give the school a do-over resulting in it officially closing down for good. Even though Greg didn’t enjoy the place, he still was sad about it’s closure.

Greg has to travel to Slacksville through a pet grooming service’s truck due to there being no formal bus routes to the town. Once he arrives, Greg expects there to be an official greeting to the new students but nobody seemed to be aware of their presence. After entering first period, Greg realizes the quality of education was even more inferior then his old school as they were being educated way below their grade level. Greg uses this opportunity as a chance to shine and he gains popularity from being one of the only literate kids attending and by introducing Fudgedogs to the school. This attracts the attention of a few female admirers and a girl named Sophie Mack asks him a question as a justification to talk to him. Things move expeditious from there, Sophie and Greg eat lunch together for the rest of the week and they promptly become a couple. Greg gets the assurance to ask out Sophie on a date but he quickly begins reconsidering his decision when he discovers that her father is Larry Mack Junior. After their date to the cinema, they visit a fast-food chain where Larry Mack Junior starts interrogating Greg since he doesn’t believe he is fit for his daughter. Just then, Greg comes across Mr. Leyton, his old Latin teacher, now working as a restaurant waiter and he places an order to him in the nonsensical 'Latin' that Leyton taught him. This impresses Larry Mack Junior and he is now curious as to what type of student he is and if he has any talents he could share. Sophie tells him that he invented Fudgedogs and the two discuss about what it takes to operate a successful business.

June

Larry Mack Junior decides that the reason why Greg was so clever was because of the education he received at his old school and he donates a fortune to reopen it under his namesake. All the students who got transferred to the two separate schools had to return which the students who got transferred to Fulson Tech weren’t too thrilled about. Sophie doesn’t want to date-long distance so she breaks up with Greg however he believes that he might’ve dodged a bullet with that one, since like most Slacksville students, she isn’t very bright. Greg still encounters her father at school however as he inspired him to finish his education and since he had a pull with the school, he managed to get Mr. Leyton rehired. After the school was forced to close, Mr. Bottoms relocated to the Caribbean to start a new life and he refused to return even when the school reopens. This results in the school installing the Cleaning Robot as a temporary replacement but if it ends up being a permanent one, Greg is seriously concerned as to where his education is headed.

Trivia

• • The title for the book was originally "Too Wimp, Too Furious", according to Jeff Kinney's social media. It is unknown why the title was changed; however, it was probably because "Too Wimp, Too Furious" was too long.
  • Jeff Kinney hinted the title to be __ _R_____ before it was fully revealed on his Twitter.  Fans originally guessed it to be "In Trouble", but after Jeff Kinney provided them with another hint that it began with an N, they ultimately guessed it to be “No Trouble”.
    • A YouTuber named Toviyaondo predicted the title to be “No Brainer” which was later confirmed to be correct.
  • The cover for this book is the first to show Greg's head in an unnatural state. In this case, Greg's head is open, revealing darkness and no brain. This is literally a visual gag, referencing "No Brainer".
  • The cover for this book is the first one where the word "Diary" is in white, and the seventh one where "Diary" is not yellow.
  • The cover for this book is also the first one where there is text on the cover, excluding "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", the subtitle, over 2xx million books sold, and "Jeff Kinney". These are the math equations on the chalkboard.
  • This is the first book where Greg’s school has a major role in the series.
  • On page 38, the Heffley family are watching a dinner theater version of Beauty and the Beast.
  • The High Flyers Club and the Platinum High Flyers Club are references to the Mile High Club some airports offer.
  • The plot where Greg becomes principal for the day is a reference to the book Help! I'm Trapped in my Principal's Body by Todd Strasser where a middle schooler becomes the principal after switching bodies with him.
  • There is no mention of Löded Diper or performances by the band, possibly due to the band being reduced to two members because of the events of the previous book. This also could be because Rodrick is not in many pages at the book.
  • Blisterin' Hot Chips is likely a parody of Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
  • The scene where B-wing hallway becomes flooded and the kids use it as a water slide is a reference to a similar scene in the 2001 film, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
  • On page 161, Greg makes a reference to King Solomon.
  • On page 166, there's a student selling student papers who resembles Jack Kelly from the 1992 movie Newsies.
  • This is the second book where the illustration on the back never appears inside the book. The first book that does this is The Third Wheel, unless you count miscellaneous books such as The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary and Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid.
  • Bink Says Boo, a book shown in the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, returns 18 books later on page 196, where it is shown as the book the English teacher is reading.
  • Greg speaking Spanish to the waiter at the restaurant he and Sophie dine at is a reference to the ninth book, where Manny saves the Heffleys from being lost by speaking Spanish to two random mechanics.
  • The image where Greg gets assaulted by a bully on page 213, is a callback to the first image in the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. The bullies that assault Greg in both images look similar to each other.
  • 70 words are written in all-capital letters in this book. This is notably much less than previous books.
  • The school's sport team is usually The Westmore Hornets in the movies, but here the teams are called the Looters at the beginning of the book.
  • Throughout the course of the book the school has 3 different mascots: The Looter, Fudgy, and Flushie.
  • The foreman from Wrecking Ball makes a cameo on page 76.