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Jay's Journal


Jay’s Journal is one of several heavy-handed adolescent cautionary tales by the questionably "Dr." Beatrice Sparks who purports to have encountered this factual information as part of her field work and to have edited and assembled it in order to benefit the reader.  According to his supposed diary, Jay is a naturally-gifted, well-intentioned high school student who is led astray after “falling in with the wrong crowd.” Fascinated, Jay finds himself spiraling deeper and deeper into a world of darkness and can see no way out short of taking his own life. The narrative’s single-minded focus on the occult’s seduction of the innocent and the glossing over of details that might titillate rather than revolt the audience causes Sparks to inadvertently reveal her sermonizing intentions and tends to leave the reader feeling dirty and manipulated as if she’s just watched one of those overly dramatic after-school specials from the 1980’s.  Although this text reeks of social guidance films such as Boys Beware or Reefer Madness, it will appeal to fans of Go Ask Alice and similar works.
  • Jay's Journal by Beatrice Sparks
  • Young Adult
  • Simon Pulse
  • 230 pp.
  • Published 2012; (copyright 1979)
  • ISBN 978-1-44248-094-0
  • $17.99 
  • Realistic

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