A review by carlysreads
Jay's Journal by Beatrice Sparks

1.0

This one is hilariously bad. An obvious work of fiction, Jay's Journal describes the downward spiral of a teenage drug addict/Satanist who descends into madness & finally kills himself. Published in the late '70s, when an unfounded fear of Satanism was plaguing middle-class Americans, the book played off these concerns & became almost as successful as editor/Mormon youth counselor Beatrice Sparks' other "diary," Go Ask Alice. The real Jay, Alden Barrett had committed suicide, but there's no evidence that he had ties to occult groups, suggesting that Sparks wrote the entries dealing with Satanism herself. Of course, anyone who knows anything about drugs & teenagers will realize that most of the book was written by someone who doesn't.