Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend: Book #9 for 2013
I remember reading the original Adrian Mole books when I was younger, starting with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole; when I realised that the title said "Diary", and that Adrian Mole was a person, and the book was not about a mole who owned a secret dairy, I was a little disappointed but I found them nonetheless compelling.
It has been a while since I last read a book in this series, and realise I am somewhat behind in my reading of them; this book is set between 2002 and 2004, and as the title suggests there is a lot of talk of the Iraq war, mostly Adrian's paranoia about the weapons of mass destruction and his son serving in the war.
As with previous books in the series, this is written in the form of Adrian's diary, which recounts significant events in his life as well as minor, random mishaps that happen to him, ranging from his problem relationship with a woman named Marigold to his issues with swans near his house; the letters to the council when Adrian complains about the swans result in some of the best comedy moments in the story. On top of that, he becomes increasingly in debt throughout the book, not helped by constant demands for payments from Marigold's parents.
At first, I was not sure about this book and thought that the format was maybe getting a bit stale, but when I got into this I found it immensely enjoyable. Since the first book, the tone has got more adult (mostly with the increasing amount of bad language, which makes sense because the original books starred Adrian Mole as a teenager, and he's now aged by 20 years). Overall, I found this to be a very entertaining read, but if you plan to try reading the series for the first time, start with the original book.