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2.78 AVERAGE
2.78 AVERAGE
It was an okay read. Emphasis on the okay part. I felt like the story was repeating itself at times. I don't see myself re-reading this book like I have for similar books.
I don't want to speak ill of the dead as it is a sad ending, but at some parts I wanted to stop reading because it seemed like Jay was... well... whining.
I don't want to speak ill of the dead as it is a sad ending, but at some parts I wanted to stop reading because it seemed like Jay was... well... whining.
Color me angry. I bought this book a year ago at Barnes & Noble from the YA section. Its description on the back of the book sounded interesting, if flamboyant: this is the journal of a boy who got in over his head with drugs and the occult before killing himself. All right, I'm interested.
So today, 23 February 2014, I finally picked it up to read. I was moving along quite quickly, being that the journal format leaves a lot of white space on the pages. But I stopped at page 100, ready to put it down for the day, before skipping to the back to read the excerpt from Sparks' other book, Go Ask Alice, which the cover and inside strongly want we, the readers, to go out and buy. This didn't feel right to me. I half-jokingly described to my room mate on his way out to work, that the book in my hand was the product of some woman who was making a living by exploiting the pain and deaths of troubled youths. And I was sort of right. When I put the book down all of 20 minutes ago, I went to the internet to see what I could dig up in regards to what edits were made. The author, after all, stated clearly in the beginning that she had done interviews with friends and family to fill out what might have been missing from "Jay's" own account.
And, if you've read any other reviews on this page, you won't be shocked to find out that the woman did practically no interviews, especially not with anyone of import, and that not just a few pieces, but the great bulk of the book is all fabricated bullshit. According to Wikipedia, the woman used only 25 of 212 (the number varies depending on source, but that's about the ratio) journal entries from "Jay", and just...well, invented the rest. I saw one person on here say she got a lot of the occult material from clients of hers, but that is beside the point. I, the consumer, was lied to about the content I was paying money for. I, the intellectual, was being lied to about the content I was consuming. The entire Barrett family were lied to, and in fact largely destroyed by the lies and character smears in this book. As I said to my room mate: Beatrice Sparks was simply making money by laying waste to the reputation of a dead boy.
I can understand something of such low journalistic integrity being published way-back-when, before the internet, before you could expose liars in a matter of moments. But why is this still around? For god's sake, my copy was printed in 2010. 2010! This is inexcusable.
And here, don't I feel like a jackass for reading the lines about levitation and auras and thinking, "well of course there's some logical explanation that "Jay" simply didn't see." There was nothing to logically examine, of course! The bitch made the whole damned thing up! Does anyone else wonder if she has trouble sleeping at night? Because I bet she sleeps like a fucking baby.
[Edit: I see now from her mini-bio that Sparks is no longer among the living. Thank god for that.]
So today, 23 February 2014, I finally picked it up to read. I was moving along quite quickly, being that the journal format leaves a lot of white space on the pages. But I stopped at page 100, ready to put it down for the day, before skipping to the back to read the excerpt from Sparks' other book, Go Ask Alice, which the cover and inside strongly want we, the readers, to go out and buy. This didn't feel right to me. I half-jokingly described to my room mate on his way out to work, that the book in my hand was the product of some woman who was making a living by exploiting the pain and deaths of troubled youths. And I was sort of right. When I put the book down all of 20 minutes ago, I went to the internet to see what I could dig up in regards to what edits were made. The author, after all, stated clearly in the beginning that she had done interviews with friends and family to fill out what might have been missing from "Jay's" own account.
And, if you've read any other reviews on this page, you won't be shocked to find out that the woman did practically no interviews, especially not with anyone of import, and that not just a few pieces, but the great bulk of the book is all fabricated bullshit. According to Wikipedia, the woman used only 25 of 212 (the number varies depending on source, but that's about the ratio) journal entries from "Jay", and just...well, invented the rest. I saw one person on here say she got a lot of the occult material from clients of hers, but that is beside the point. I, the consumer, was lied to about the content I was paying money for. I, the intellectual, was being lied to about the content I was consuming. The entire Barrett family were lied to, and in fact largely destroyed by the lies and character smears in this book. As I said to my room mate: Beatrice Sparks was simply making money by laying waste to the reputation of a dead boy.
I can understand something of such low journalistic integrity being published way-back-when, before the internet, before you could expose liars in a matter of moments. But why is this still around? For god's sake, my copy was printed in 2010. 2010! This is inexcusable.
And here, don't I feel like a jackass for reading the lines about levitation and auras and thinking, "well of course there's some logical explanation that "Jay" simply didn't see." There was nothing to logically examine, of course! The bitch made the whole damned thing up! Does anyone else wonder if she has trouble sleeping at night? Because I bet she sleeps like a fucking baby.
[Edit: I see now from her mini-bio that Sparks is no longer among the living. Thank god for that.]
The real Jay went to my high school (years before me) — those of us who went to high school in a pre-Internet age before 9/11 lived with (I assume) more myths and oral traditions than those today. Jay’s Journal was a frequent topic throughout Jr. High School and High School in the 1990s. Jay’s (Alden was his real name) dad had a medical practice on Main St. a baseball’s toss from the city library where my mom worked.
Stories about Jay ranged from the benign, “I knew someone who knew him” to the more sinister, “I know where Jay did rituals in this house/underground tunnel/etc.” The “Blue Moo” restaurant is the Purple Turtle in real life, still a staple of the small, actual city of Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Alden/“Jay’s” grave is in the PG cemetery, not too far from where my dad’s grave is, so I’m at the cemetery more often during the past few years. “Jay’s” gravestone has a chipped clay picture of him -- whoever did it forgot that when you are looking at a picture, Jay’s right side is our left (the journal mentions his death via gunshot to the right temple). There is also a lengthy poem written by Alden/“Jay” on the gravestone that misspells “Who’s” instead of “Whose” a few times but has a few tender lines, including one about being thirsty — there are often drinks placed at his grave as a result. I've left one many times myself, usually from Hart's or BJ's, two gas station convenience stores kitty-corner to each other just down the road from the PG cemetery. It was said around town that if you placed a drink at his grave, you’d be protected from the evil spirits or “Raul” etc.
I used to ride my bike past Alden’s house (the Barrett’s), but I never knocked on their door to bother them. When I was an office aide at Pleasant Grove High School, I confirmed that there are tunnels under the school, and some are accessible near the assembly hall stage. When I went down there it was your basic dusty, cobwebbed alley with dead mice, minor graffiti, a few chairs, other unknown items, etc. I didn’t have a flashlight so I didn’t go too far, plus it was a dicey place to navigate, devil-worshipping myths or not.
I was shocked years later when I learned how widespread Jay’s Journal was, across the nation and even the world. I thought it was a documented local legend — there were probably six or seven local legends that were given almost as much weight as Jay’s, including a so-called “Swinger” at an elementary school near Alden/“Jay’s/the Barrett’s home. Swinger in the sense of a swingset. Supposedly, a woman, usually dressed in all white (who was also an albino who'd only go out at night), preferred the tall, chain swingsets at nearby Valley View Elementary School. I saw the Swinger multiple times in person — or at least someone in all white swinging at night (who knows if it was a person pretending to be the swinger to continue the power of that myth). As such, that was the strongest local myth, with Jay being second, as far as my perspective is concerned.
I decided to re-read this book (which, when young, was considered contraband, and passed around in secret). The library copies were always missing, and one time someone put a different dust jacket on it and placed it elsewhere so that it would always be available when needed. I wanted to re-read it to prepare for the Rick Emerson book “Unmasked Alice” about the editor/author of Jay’s Journal and Go Ask Alice, Beatrice Sparks, being a deceptive charlatan who used only 20 or so actual journal entries of the 220+ in Jay’s Journal. She had other deceptions that really hurt the Barrett family after they entrusted her with their traumatic story about their son Alden in hopes that it would prevent similar occurrences for other families, but it looks like Jay’s Journal may have created even more problems during the drug and satanic panics of the 80s and 90s. I'll probably read this book one more time in my life, after I read the Rick Emerson book, which looks to be quite detailed.
Stories about Jay ranged from the benign, “I knew someone who knew him” to the more sinister, “I know where Jay did rituals in this house/underground tunnel/etc.” The “Blue Moo” restaurant is the Purple Turtle in real life, still a staple of the small, actual city of Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Alden/“Jay’s” grave is in the PG cemetery, not too far from where my dad’s grave is, so I’m at the cemetery more often during the past few years. “Jay’s” gravestone has a chipped clay picture of him -- whoever did it forgot that when you are looking at a picture, Jay’s right side is our left (the journal mentions his death via gunshot to the right temple). There is also a lengthy poem written by Alden/“Jay” on the gravestone that misspells “Who’s” instead of “Whose” a few times but has a few tender lines, including one about being thirsty — there are often drinks placed at his grave as a result. I've left one many times myself, usually from Hart's or BJ's, two gas station convenience stores kitty-corner to each other just down the road from the PG cemetery. It was said around town that if you placed a drink at his grave, you’d be protected from the evil spirits or “Raul” etc.
I used to ride my bike past Alden’s house (the Barrett’s), but I never knocked on their door to bother them. When I was an office aide at Pleasant Grove High School, I confirmed that there are tunnels under the school, and some are accessible near the assembly hall stage. When I went down there it was your basic dusty, cobwebbed alley with dead mice, minor graffiti, a few chairs, other unknown items, etc. I didn’t have a flashlight so I didn’t go too far, plus it was a dicey place to navigate, devil-worshipping myths or not.
I was shocked years later when I learned how widespread Jay’s Journal was, across the nation and even the world. I thought it was a documented local legend — there were probably six or seven local legends that were given almost as much weight as Jay’s, including a so-called “Swinger” at an elementary school near Alden/“Jay’s/the Barrett’s home. Swinger in the sense of a swingset. Supposedly, a woman, usually dressed in all white (who was also an albino who'd only go out at night), preferred the tall, chain swingsets at nearby Valley View Elementary School. I saw the Swinger multiple times in person — or at least someone in all white swinging at night (who knows if it was a person pretending to be the swinger to continue the power of that myth). As such, that was the strongest local myth, with Jay being second, as far as my perspective is concerned.
I decided to re-read this book (which, when young, was considered contraband, and passed around in secret). The library copies were always missing, and one time someone put a different dust jacket on it and placed it elsewhere so that it would always be available when needed. I wanted to re-read it to prepare for the Rick Emerson book “Unmasked Alice” about the editor/author of Jay’s Journal and Go Ask Alice, Beatrice Sparks, being a deceptive charlatan who used only 20 or so actual journal entries of the 220+ in Jay’s Journal. She had other deceptions that really hurt the Barrett family after they entrusted her with their traumatic story about their son Alden in hopes that it would prevent similar occurrences for other families, but it looks like Jay’s Journal may have created even more problems during the drug and satanic panics of the 80s and 90s. I'll probably read this book one more time in my life, after I read the Rick Emerson book, which looks to be quite detailed.
The blurb on the jacket was what enticed me to read this book. Then I started reading the reviews posted on goodreads and that did it for me. I couldn't finish it.
I feel it was less of an occult journal and more of a severe bipolar depression journal. I am sorry for this kid and his family and the need for him to kill himself. But his issues had very little to deal with dark forces and everything to do with mental illness.
So...this book...it seemed okayish at first, but as it went on it gradually got stranger. I'm good with strange. I thrive on it. But when I got to the end I was really FREAKING freaked out. I seriously enjoyed this, It's been a while since I've had the shit scared out of me.
Full Review:
https://beentherereadthat.blog/2018/07/31/youre-not-jay-jays-journal-a-book-review/
Full Review:
https://beentherereadthat.blog/2018/07/31/youre-not-jay-jays-journal-a-book-review/
First off... the writing is the same exact writing as Go Ask Alice. Jay sounds like a teenage girl. Hard to believe that people think that this is from a real diary to this day. Secondly is the fact that i study witchcraft and it is not satanism. Most witches don’t believe in using witchcraft for harm because it brings bad karma. There is so much wrong with this book. I spent $3.50 on it and that was too much money.