krhansen 's review for:

Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose by Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain
2.0

I was expecting something along the lines of "Go Ask Alice" but found myself disappointed...

Dear Nobody is the posthumous memoir of a drug abusing teen who dies of cystic fibrosis. She uses her journal to chronicle her daily life -- one where she is frequently bored, and searching for meaning.

While her voice feels authentic, this book is not a crafted narrative and suffers a good authorial hand in the story. Her suffering is compelling as she searches for connection and meaning in a life she knows will be truncated. Her body fails her and she seeks escape through alcohol and drugs, which is sad, in and of itself. I found most of the entries to be repetitive and a lot of it went nowhere. It felt unreal to me, despite essentialy being nonfiction.