The Diary of a Nobody the first, "The Diary of a Somebody", is a direct reference to the Grossmith original. Reviewing this volume in "The Spectator", Benny Green points out several parallels with the original, in both character and event. Matthew's book, says Green, is amusing, but the Grossmiths' book is superior; it is "affecting as well as comical, in a way that the Matthew pastiche is not". In 1982 came the first appearance of Sue Townsend's teenage creation, Adrian Mole, whose passage into young manhood and early middle age is charted in a long series of diaries. The more middle-aged he becomes, says Morton,
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years place of her school uniform and has become slightly obsessed with High School Musical. Throughout the course of the book, Adrian frequently feels that he has been emotionally neglectful of her, resulting in her lack of respect towards him. She is partially named after her paternal grandmother (her full name is Gracie Pauline Mole). Pauline, Adrian's mother is more central to this book's storyline and is a comforting female presence in the life of Daisy, Adrian's wife. During the course of the book, she is working on a highly exaggerated semi-autobiographical novel entitled "A Girl Called "Shit"" (a pun on