Rating: 
Summary: it's a good book but....
Review: I find it wonderfully interesting the Ms. Beatrice Sparks manages to come upon so many journals. Definatly intersting...
Rating: 
Summary: Satanism and Suicide
Review: I read this book for the first time when I was taking a psychology class. That was several years ago but the book has stayed with me. The story of Jay, a bright, talented teenager who is sucked into a world of uninteruppted pain and terror is a story we can all relate to. It took me about 2 hours to read and by the time I was done, I felt exhausted emotionally. I had wept through almost the whole book and I felt depressed at the end. Still, this book is an excellant study in psychology and a powerful reminder of what can happen to teenagers everywhere if they go down the wrong path. It is not a book to be enjoyed, it is impossible to enjoy someone else's pain. But it is a powerful, impressive work that everyone should read.
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Summary: my review
Review: I read this book after I read 'go ask Alice' this book I under stand is fiction, although the author perceives it to be a real diary. It's pretty scary and disturbing. Some parts of the book doesn't make any sense, but it's definitely worth ready. If you liked this book, or even if you never read this book, I recommend Go Ask Alice instead, It's a little less creepy.I still get chills thinking about it (and I read this book like 2 or 3 years ago)
Rating: 
Summary: good but fiction...
Review: Ms. Sparks made this book up from a number of stories. As i live in utah close to the area that 'Jay' lived, this story was a fav with high school kids. We would visit his grave that has a picture of him. it was fun and scary... His real name is Alden Barrett and none of the satanic stuff in Jay's Journal happened! what you say?!!!
in 1997 Alden's brother Scott published a book call A place in the sun the truth behind Jay's Journal. Scott Barrett includes a facsimile of jay's original journal. Alden was a troubled boy and did kill him self but no satanic items at all. so this book was scary to read but it is mostly fiction.. :-)
Rating: 
Summary: jay's journal
Review: i like this book a lot, have read it quite a few times. an interesting inside account about life in the occult. scary and real.
Rating:
Summary: REALLY GOOD
Review: This book was so good. Whail reading, I got goosebumps! It was quite denomic, but I couldn't put it down. It was a little confusing, but it was great.
Rating:
Summary: Compares To "The Catcher In The Rye"
Review: Why is it that people are so attracted to the corruption of this world? Innocence can not be held at any cost. For innocence is the truest bait for corruption. It is inevitable that we all must be corrupted at some point.
I myself being a boy of 15 named Jay picked up this book because of my girlfriend. She had read it and thought I would be interested. Though it has been 6 months since I first started to read it, I once again picked up the book yesterday and read the entire thing.
I am intrigued by Jay's nonchalant honesty within his own journal. I recently have been keeping a journal myself and find it difficult to include much of the vice which controls my life. I even started writing an essay about my life a month ago which starts as I am young and continues through now. It includes my own accounts of drugs, sex, and alcoholism. Yet it still feels as though it is a stretch from the truth. After reading this book I feel as though I am given the true story of a boy so together, yet so apart it is truly mortifying to my soul!
After reading "Jay's Journal" I immediately went to my computer looking for information on the Occult. I found myself in some weird sense attached to it, almost a part of it. I think that in many ways as I grow as a person I am looking for answers. Answers to life, to happiness, even to spirituality. It was Hugo Grotius who once said, "By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing." I believe Jay comes so close to understanding life in this journal that I can sense his closeness. This is why the book intrigues me to dig deeper into Jay's story. I feel a need to find out the whole truth and even look into the Occult itself. I honestly feel as though I have gained a true new piece of me after reading this! For me "Jay's Journal" holds as deep a meaning as even "The Catcher In The Rye".
Rating:
Summary: Weird, but good.
Review: I loved this book!! I was shocked at the stuff that people do. Even though you know that he commits suicide, you hope that he pull out of his hole. People 13 or under should not read this book, it may scar them for life. After that though you need to read it, it shows how these things turn out. I know i'm never going to join an occult, or anything close. You need to get this book!!!!
Rating:
Summary: i hate a book that lies to me!
Review: This book is a big lie! Although i knew nothing about this "true account" when i picked it up, as i got deeper into the book I sensed something was missing. Jay's character didn't add up. He struck me as too sane and objective to be crazy, too moral and connected with himself to be so immoral, too mature in his thoughts and writing to be so immature, and FAR TOO HONEST AND EXPRESSIVE WITH HIMSELF to be so dishonest with everyone around him. The fact that he killed himself just didn't add up to me. I'm a psychotherapist who works with suicidal people (adults now but teens in the past) and i just didn't buy it. At first i wondered if Sparks simply changed too much of Jay's identifying information (which even Freud warns against in recounting case studies) to make the story hold, but later i found myself wondering if she had actually re-written the journal herself to fit HER needs (perhaps to sell books, get famous, whatever - or perhaps some more sinister psychological desire to disguise a worthy person's true story). Although i still don't know what actually happened in "Jay's" case, ten minutes of internet research showed me claims that Jay (supposedly really Alden Barrett) was never even into the occult at all! Also, there were claims he was schizophrenic (of which this supposed "journal" gives no indication), and that "Dr." Beatrice Sparks (who should lose her license if this proves true) MADE UP whole sections of the book (more than 50%), weaving in "accounts" of other teenagers she supposedly knew. One thing for which i am grateful about this book is that Sparks is only a mediocre writer. Had she produced a more believable account of "Jay's Journal", i probably never would have become suspicious and taken my suspicions beyond the state of contemplation. I think what is called for here is the publication of "Jay's" actual journal so the reader sort the rest out for him or herself.
Rating:
Summary: yikes!
Review: this book was good, even though i hate to admit it. i was terrified to go to sleep alone in the dark after reading it, so i spent weeks falling asleep with a light on. i don't recommend it to anyone unless they want the ... scared out of them.
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