Rating: 
Summary: Shame on you Mrs. Sparks
Review: This book is a LIE. Do the smallest bit of research and you'll see that. Beatrice Sparks defamed the reputation of an entire family and one poor kid through her witchhunt. She didn't care about the truth; she cared about "scaring straight" teens and making a quick buck in the process. The real person this "journal" is based on was never into the occult. He was a normal kid who was interested in Eastern religions and liberal politics. Maybe that's the same think in Sparks' mind. I'm very ashamed to have picked up this book. I wish I could get my money back so that Mrs. Sparks doesn't get her royalty check.
Rating:
Summary: Lies.
Review: Though it has already been said several times, I just want to reiterate that this book is a work of fiction. It has absolutely no basis in fact. Sparks simply wanted to cash in on the growing Satanism scare, and in the process destroyed a family as well as a boy's memory. A boy who, incidentally, had nothing to do with the occult.
In fact, the local police have said that while there was almost no occult activity in town before the book came out, the amount of occult-related crimes committed after the book was published skyrocketed. Luckily, all Ms. Sparks cares about is money, so her job here is done.
Rating: 
Summary: A book with a purpose
Review: Jay's Journal is a personal journal of a teen struggling to understand life. Jay is facing the many problems of being a teenager and doesn't seem to make the right decisions. Between different girlfriends, losing his job because he stole from them and dealing with a drug problem, Jay ends up in a correctional facility. While there he meets up with a guy named Pete who introduces him to what he calls " God's Magic." After he begins messing with this magic things get better but then, after deciding to quit, things go down hill. These magic tendencies and his addiction to drugs eventually lead to Jay's downfall.
This book is, to me, the equivelant of what is going on in every teens life. It may not be thoughts running through their own head but it things that they have heard and most teens deal with daily. I would especailly recommend this book to people who have lost a friend or loved one to suicide. Most people think suicide is just a way to get out, the easy way, but reading this book directed me to the idea that some suicides are just because they are lost in themselves. Jay seemed to me just to be infatuated with himself and did it as his last attempt to get attention.
The views expressed in this novel are things that the world should know. Some people don't understand what it is like to be a teen. Even though at one time in their life, everyone was a teen, I guess no one remembers the highs and lows and comlplciations of being a teen. Especially now, things in the world are getting worse, teen pregnancy, suicide and drug use and abuse are on the rise and people don't understand why? This book is directed to those who want the answers to these questions and to better understand, what it is like to be a teen.
Rating:
Summary: What a lark!
Review: I had been interested in this book for a while, mainly because it mentions the Occult. I've been interested in this kind of story since I was about nine.
I had been reading some of the spotlighted reviews people on here had written and despite their negative statements I thought I still wanted to read this book.
Ironic enough, I start reading the book and was surprized at how there isn't anything occult in it. Oh sure, they mention ESP and Psi abilities and hint at voodoo.
There isn't a thing dealing with the occult, witchcraft,or santeria/voodoo anywhere in this book.
Jay, the kid mentioned in the story, starts a decline into drugs. He then in a correctional facility finds a guy named Paul or Peter something who introduces him to fuzzy New Age logic and pretty much tries to indoctrinate him by having him take what I believe to be mushrooms. At school again he finds a few people and becomes indoctrinated into this crazy world of nothing more than kids wanting to do a bunch of 'oogly boogly' stuff and freak eachother out.
Secondly, I would like to point out some of the inconsistencies in the book that any paranormal real researcher would note. Jay and his friends could replicate each and every expiriment they did with eachotehr (no doubt high and stoned on something.) But he mentions also that he couldn't replicate it in front of others. This only proves to me that they're just making it up.
And toward the end it starts to really degenerate into nothingness. Satanism has nothing to do with animal sacrafice, and that ritual where he has an OBE really had nothing to do with any occult ritual that I have ever seen. Again, kids doing 'oogly boogly' to scare eachother, there's some obvious power plays going on here.
And supposedly, according to other posters of reviews of this story, Beatrice Sparks made up the whole occult thing. Great gods, she sucks at it. At least get your facts straight woman! True occult study involves reading, it involves study and contemplation. And as a note to anyone out there, most occult orders (including the roscrucians that Beatrice Sparks so lovingly likes to point out more than a few times) do not include children under the age of 18, unless they are other members kids.
One other last point about inconsistencies of the book. Beatrice sparks in her opening arguments uses similar words and connotations as "jay's" journal. His journal style is varied. One moment he's sniveling and writing in sentence fragments, the next he's writing in perfect grammatical english. Also I would point out the fact that at the end, his mother's emotional letter, she mentions NOTHING of the supposed 'occult' stuff he was into.
Stay away from this book. As a writer, it's amazing I would ever say this, but it's true. Stay away from this book. It's B.S and we know those initals don't stand for Beatrice Sparks.
Rating:
Summary: Jay's Journal Book Review
Review: Sparks, Beatrice. Jay's Journal. New York: Pocket Books, 1979. 189 pages.
Beatrice Spark's arduous and vapid story Jay's Journal is a tedious reading experience. It is the story of a 15-year-old boy named Jay, his battle with drugs, his interest in witchcraft, and his many bouts with depression. At the beginning of the story he has everything going for him, good grades, a girlfriend, even the support of his church, family, and friends. All of this starts to change however when he gets a job at his father's pharmacy and his girlfriends wants him to steal drugs for her, which he does. Soon Jay starts using them and getting involved in Satanism. Now everything in Jay's life is starting to spiral out of control and he isn't able to grasp on to anything to make it stop! He says, " I don't want to be sad or lonely or depressed anymore, and I don't want to eat, drink, eliminate, breathe, talk, sleep, move, feel, or love anymore. I'm not free, I feel ill, and I'm sad and I'm lonely." His off and on use of drugs (which was not only predictable but also very irritating) was pretty much the entire story. Also, this is said to be a true story, but all of the paranormal things that happened in the story seem incredibly unreal and fictional. After finally finishing this dull story, I can know say that I would not recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Book review for Jays Journal
Review: Book review for: Jays Journal By: Tara
I previously have read " Go Ask Alice" which is also about a troubled teenager who is trying to find herself. These books have a lot in common because the teenager of each book starts off as a normal kid, with normal priorities, and on the road to success. When they start to hang around with the wrong kids, they soon head toward the wrong track, getting involved with drugs and alcohol.
After reading "Go ask Alice" and hearing that "Jay's Journal" was similar, I decided to go ahead and read it. I also choose to read this book because I don't like reading fairy tale stories. I prefer to read books about real live things. I also believe that there are a lot of teenagers that don't know how to deal with real life issues and it all goes down hill from there. This book would be helpful for teenagers to read who are similar to those in the book. It has a lot of life lessons even for someone who has a friend like the characters in these books. These are good books for someone to read who enjoys books that teach life lessons. However, someone who gets depressed easily and prefers happy endings rather than real life issues would not enjoy this book.
The book started off slowly and introduced the character Jay and his journal. Throughout the book, Jay has ups and downs on his road to success. From being sent away to a bad boys school, to meeting new friends, bad and good, trying drugs and voodoo, winning awards and skipping school. There were no limits for the ups and downs in Jay's life. Just when you think that he on the right track and doing well, he blows it. I didn't find Jay easy to relate as a character, because our lifestyles are so different. However, I did find it easy to feel for Jay, because I felt just as disappointed when he messed up his parents did. I don't want to ruin the ending because I enjoyed it. It was one of those endings that I didn't expect in the least. If I had to rate this book I would rate it an 8, because, although there were some slow parts in the book, it kept me on the edge of my seat and I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Overall I would recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Only about 25% truth
Review: It's been really disappointing for me to discover that the "diaries" which Dr. Sparks "edits" so often are more fictional than factual. Even if she, in her line of work, really has come across so many journals from troubled teens with so many different types of problems, it's incredibly suspicious how the writing style in each one is so dead-on similar, and how moralistic and preachy they all are. For example, Jay will be trashing on his mother, and then a page later he profusely and tearfully takes it back, or he'll be happily having sex with his girlfriend Debbie but later on in the journal saying he'll never have premarital sex ever again. Only about 25 of the entries in here are actually Jay's; the rest come from teenagers who were into the occult, something which the real Jay himself was never even into. And I'm not a member of that religion myself, but from what I've read, real Satanists don't do the things they are described as doing in this book, like killing cats, drinking a mix of cow's blood and potent drugs in a spooky initiation ceremony, and using Voodoo to harm their enemies. The things that start happening towards the end really creeped me out, like the demonic possession, Jay talking to demons, the Devil leaping into the family cat, Jay's voice being taken away by the demon he encounters at night, and all of the increasingly bad things happening to his friends and enemies alike, but whether or not they're true or whether they happened to the real Jay is another story.
Why would an intelligent, smart, MENSA-level IQ student, and devoted churchgoer such as Jay go from doing really well in school and helping out at his father's store to stealing drugs for his girlfriend and sneaking drugs into the medicines his father is selling? Even if he really is so in love with Debbie he'll do anything for her, this kind of transformation just doesn't happen overnight like it does in the book. When he's caught and sent away to a kind of corrections facility for troubled young men, he falls under the influence of Pete, who takes a great liking to him and begins tutoring him in secret about things like levitation, auras, crystals, projections, and all kinds of metaphysical and paranormal topics. When Jay is finally released, he doesn't stop thinking about what Pete has taught him, and gets his two best friends involved. Finding out that Pete has been dismissed from the home for raping a ten year old boy in a broom closet doesn't dampen the boys' fascination with the things he taught them about, however. Eventually the three boys fall under the influence of even stranger people, people who are even deeper into the occult than they are, and for unexplained reasons they do everything these new friends of theirs do. They're skipping a lot of steps in between being interested in safe paranormal and occult subjects like crystals, divination, auras, and projection and dangerous things like killing cows and cats, drinking their blood, and making and shredding Voodoo dolls of enemies. In hindsight it does seem fishy how Jay goes from model student, devout churchgoer, and important member of his school's debate team to someone really messed up with the wrong crowd of friends and demonic possession.
Rating:
Summary: Still a good book, people should read!
Review: I bought this book because I read "Go ask Alice" and thought This book would be just as cool! It was I would have given it 5 stars but it wasn't what I expected,it tells a story of Jay who gets sucked into the world of a Cult and drugs. Jay committed suside at the end from unhappyness, sad, but some kids do get sad at this age trying to find themself so they do commite suside,every 17 seconds,someone commites sudide,Maybe by reading this book and learning that your not alone,other people feel the same way, just maybe with that 17 seconds someone commites suside we can change someones mind, save someones life.
Rating:
Summary: Shame on you Mrs. Sparks
Review: Though it has already been said several times, I just want to reiterate that this book is a work of fiction. It has absolutely no basis in fact. Sparks simply wanted to cash in on the growing Satanism scare, and in the process destroyed a family as well as a boy's memory. A boy who, incidentally, had nothing to do with the occult.
In fact, the local police have said that while there was almost no occult activity in town before the book came out, the amount of occult-related crimes committed after the book was published skyrocketed. Luckily, all Ms. Sparks cares about is money, so her job here is done.
Rating: 
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: Jays Journal is a really good book. I picked it up after I read Go Ask Alice and I can totally relate to the issues he was going through. It's nice to read something that really happens and isn't always a "happy ending" just because. If you see it, you should read it.
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