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Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (or just Middle School) is a book series written by James Patterson (and appears to be mainly ghostwritten nowadays). It's much like Diary of a Wimpy Kid in terms of the main character, but the plot contains darker elements.
If you're unfamiliar, this kid named Rafe (rah-fay? or raif?) Khatchadorian is starting middle school, when he gets bored and is challenged by his pal Leo to break all the rules in the school handbook. This, of course, has obvious ramifications.
We learn that Rafe has an abusive stepfather, a bully who treats him like shit, and a girl whom he loves more than anything. Overall, it's a great read, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed DoaWK.

The book went on to spawn several sequels with different writers and illustrators, and even a movie (which is pretty bad). The books appear to have gone in a similar direction to how The Fairly OddParents turned out, becoming less mature and scrapping its darker themes in turn for a more childish storytelling, and today, when I search for it online, there is nothing I can find similar to what the Diary of a Wimpy Kid fanbase produced. No LLBs, no fanart, nothing.
Did the series never develop a proper "fandom?" Did it fall out of style? Or is it just not as popular as I thought?

I remembered this one when I saw the main character's name. Sadly I don't really recall much, only that it came out during the "diary" craze.

This is mostly off topic but I remember reading Maximum Ride by James Patterson like 11 years ago and what a weird story it was with teenage angels fighting against werewolf angels. Then there was some part about life being a simulation or something like that and I completely gave up on the series after I read that. There's apparently a comic series about the story out there and I wonder if it's any better.

I actually read the manga version of that in school, tho not too much of it since I only got them from the library. I also read a teeny tiny bit of Daniel X's manga version and a fairly decent chunk of Cirque du Freak's. That last one was my favorite of those three.