Episode 183 – Jay’s Journal
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2021
⏱️ 79 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After reading Go Ask Alice last year, we were still left with some lingering questions about issues facing teens. Like, drugs are bad, but what about doing occult rituals? Are they okay if you’re only using them to win high school debate tournaments? To find out, we read another book from Beatrice Sparks’ Anonymous Diaries series, Jay’s Journal. Join us for another spine-tingling episode with our beloved former editor Becca!
Content warning: This book and our discussion of it contains non-graphic discussions of death by suicide, animal abuse, drug use, sexual assault, and a lot of confusing cultural appropriation.
Readers advisory: Here.
Footnotes: Episode 163 – Go Ask Alice
“Teen Death Diary” by Ben Dieterle
Alden’s Brother’s Amazon Review of Jay’s Journal
Grady Hendrix on Jay’s Journal
Coming up next: Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson.
* Worst Bestsellers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
(But no pressure, we’re also happy if you get these items from your local library or independent bookstore.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to worst bestsellers, where we read about the power of oh so you don't have to. |
| 0:19.2 | I'm Renata. |
| 0:20.2 | And I'm Kate. And for this episode we read jays journal by |
| 0:24.8 | anonymous wink joining us to discuss this cautionary cult tale is becca who regrets her life |
| 0:32.7 | choices hi becca what's up demons demons? It's me, your girl. |
| 0:46.6 | Yeah, I do not blame you for regretting the choices that have led you to this path, but since we're here, why don't we share your life story and maybe it can set some other teens on the |
| 0:52.9 | right path, which I think was the goal of this book. |
| 0:56.7 | I will share with you two of my diary entries and you can write the rest around it. |
| 1:02.2 | Uh-huh. Cool. Yeah. So for starters, Jay's Journal by Anonymous. This is the same Anonymous who is |
| 1:09.9 | responsible for Go Ask Alice, which we read last year, |
| 1:13.6 | also with Becca, which again, probably a regrettable life choice. Yeah, a bit, a bit. |
| 1:19.6 | But no day but today. We're in Jay's Journal now. And so Beatrice Sparks wrote several of these anonymous teen diary books where she presents it like |
| 1:32.7 | it's a diary in order to present her own like Mormon youth counselor propaganda. But to the |
| 1:42.3 | extent that their actual diaries is very debatable. |
| 1:46.4 | She claimed Go Ask Alice was, but there's no actual evidence of that at all. |
| 1:51.3 | This one did actually start from a diary that was actually sent to her by some poor dead teen's misguided mother. |
| 2:00.7 | The real teen was named Alden Barrett. |
| 2:03.9 | And according to Alden's brother... |
| 2:07.4 | In his Amazon review? |
| 2:09.3 | Did you see that? |
| 2:10.1 | I didn't see the Amazon review. |
| 2:11.4 | I was reading this article from the Salt Lake City Weekly Journal. |
... |
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