Just For Fun 2012 Reading Challenge: Jay's Journal by Anonymous

Jay's Journal is the book I chose for my February selection of the Just For Fun 2012 Reading Challenge. You can click here to see my complete list on Goodreads.

Book Info:

ISBN #: 978-1442419933

Page Count: 230

Copyright: 1979

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Book Summary:

(Taken from back cover)

Jay thought he could handle anything. The first time he took drugs was for fun. But what started as an escape quickly spiraled into a haze of addiction. That was just the beginning of the dangerous path that ultimately led Jay to take his own life.

Mandy's Review:

I never knew there was a companion diary to Go Ask Alice until I went to Books-A-Million and saw Jay's Journal sitting beside Go Ask Alice on the bookshelf. I was curious, so I purchased Jay's Journal the same day I bought Go Ask Alice.

Let's make some quick comparisons between Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal...

Some of the similarities:

• Both books were copies of a troubled teenager's diary
• Both teenagers lived in the 1970s
• Both teenagers committed suicide
• Both claimed to want to turn from their troubled existences, but neither had the willpower to make the changes
• Both converted others to their lifestyle and then regretted doing so later on

Some of the differences:

• Jay's Journal is written by a teenage boy, whereas Go Ask Alice was written by a teenage girl (obvious, right?)
• Alice was mainly involved in drugs, whereas Jay dabbled in a little bit of drugs (unknown to him) but his main addiction was the occult.
• Alice ran away from home, Jay did not

I did like that Jay's Journal covered a different addiction than Go Ask Alice. The occult is a very serious activity to participate in. Often times, it isn't taken seriously enough. While the occult is not talked about as prevalently nowadays (at least from what I see), it is still an ever present danger to people.

The majority of this book sounded more realistic than Go Ask Alice did to me, but there were still parts that I felt like someone took literary liberties with. There are excerpts that just do not sound like something a teenage boy would say ... even in a private journal. Then there were several passages where the dates of the entries just didn't jive for me.

So, overall, I liked this book better than Go Ask Alice, but not enough to recommend it be read by others.

Just For Fun 2012 Reading Challenge: Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Go Ask Alice is the book I chose for my January selection of the Just For Fun 2012 Reading Challenge.  You can click here to see my complete list on Goodreads.

Book Info:

ISBN #: 978-1416914631

Page Count: 214

Copyright: 1971

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Book Summary:

(Taken from back cover)

It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth - and ultimately her life.

Mandy's Review:

I've seen all the hype about Go Ask Alice. I've read about how much people love the book and think it's the greatest thing ever. About how controversial and sad it is to read a 15-year-old's diary concerning drugs and the effects of living a life full of them. All of this was the reason I was eager to add this to my TBR pile and read it for this challenge.

The book is divided into two "diaries," the second one being started when the first one was full. I will start my review with the first diary.

I did not care for it. It did not sound at all like a 15-year-old would sound. While reading it, all I kept picturing was an adult writing the book trying to make it sound like a 15-year-old girl. Here are some examples from the book of why I do not think this came from an actual 15-year-old's diary:

• From page 9: Dear precious Diary, I am baptizing you with my tears. I know we have to leave and that one day I will even have to leave my father and mother's home and go into a home of my own. But ever I will take you with me.
• From page 24: We'll pick her up on the way, but I just had to stop and jot the whole ecstatic experience down. It's just too tremendous and delightful and wonderful to keep all bottled-up inside.
• From page 64-65: Goodbye dear home, goodbye good family. I really am leaving mostly because I love you so much and I don't want you to ever know what a weak and disreputable person I have been.

Not only do those passages not sound as a 15-year-old would write them, but other things annoyed me as well ... One day everything would be sunshine and rainbows and "I won't touch drugs ever again" type thing, then, next thing you know, everything sucks and is horrible and drugs are the most wonderful thing ever to take her away from it all. I got so tired of reading the back-and-forth internal monologue.

Now, I understand that teenagers are dramatic (I did used to be one) and that everything can seem great one day and terrible the next, but I've also been on drugs and alcohol before. While drugs seem like fun at the time you're doing them, you're not going to experience an intense desire for them right away like the diary writer seemed to. It's been my experience that it takes awhile to become dependent on them.

Diary two seems to be where the girl is starting a new life without drugs. This is where the book gets interesting for me. Finally, I become engaged in her story. Finally, I believe that this may be a diary written by a 15-year-old girl.

Her struggle to live a life without drugs in the same town with the same people she used to do drugs with is a very intense and, almost, heart-wrenching tale. She garnered my sympathy and empathy every time one of her old "friends" came around trying to set her up or harm her. Every time she resisted, I became prouder and prouder of her determination to not go back to the old lifestyle. It infuriated me when I read about the laced chocolate-covered peanuts that sent her flying off into la-la land. Then I read that she died three weeks after her last diary entry. Which makes me wonder ...

Was she really off of the drugs?

Did she lie in her diary in case anybody read it?

Was there really laced chocolate-covered peanuts?

Or did somebody stop by and bring her a hit?

I have so many questions about this book that I didn't enjoy it like I was hoping I would. I'm aware that my opinion of this book varies greatly from the mass population, but it is what it is.

Just For Fun 2012 Reading Challenge

As bloggers, we are all on timetables to read books, get reviews posted, host giveaways, etc.  But we also travel around to other blogs and see books we would just like to read because of their recommendation or the cover or title catches our interest.

As followers, you get our recommendations, win books from us, pick up books at the library or buy them at a store. But our lives are so busy, these books sometimes sit in our To-Be-Read piles for months or even years.

This is the second year Dollycas, over at Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book, is hosting this challenge.

To sign up and to read all the details, click here to go to the Goodreads group page. You can sign up until January 31, 2012 so go now!

To read my list of 12 books that I'll be reading for this challenge, click on the 2012 Reading Challenges link to the right.