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ktyler's review
1.0
I was looking through the bookstore purchasing materials for my vacation (rare treat to self) when this book on display jumped out at me. Recommendations on the back made it seem like it would be enjoyable, funny, and a speedy read.
Well it was speedy.
In this book Arfin takes diary entries from elementary school up to the present and pokes fun at them. She also goes back to talk to people she wrote about to find out if they're still jerks or whether they've mended their ways.
The problem is that Arfin seems like a bigger jerk than those she claims tortured her in school. She's petty and vindictive and isn't someone that I would particularly want to know. While a book could still work under these conditions, this one doesn't. Arfin wants to appeal to reader nostalgia by recalling the awkwardness of youth, but with a glut of memoirs on the market, it should contain some insight into human nature. Instead of exploring her own faults and reasons for her decent into drug abuse, her defenses are raised so high that readers can see an insecurity that the author herself won't admit exists. By the end of the book, I found the author's picture on the back cover was the perfect capper. She is wearing sunglasses and blowing bubble gum to obscure what she looks like, her small arms tossed up in a faux gangster pose.
Well it was speedy.
In this book Arfin takes diary entries from elementary school up to the present and pokes fun at them. She also goes back to talk to people she wrote about to find out if they're still jerks or whether they've mended their ways.
The problem is that Arfin seems like a bigger jerk than those she claims tortured her in school. She's petty and vindictive and isn't someone that I would particularly want to know. While a book could still work under these conditions, this one doesn't. Arfin wants to appeal to reader nostalgia by recalling the awkwardness of youth, but with a glut of memoirs on the market, it should contain some insight into human nature. Instead of exploring her own faults and reasons for her decent into drug abuse, her defenses are raised so high that readers can see an insecurity that the author herself won't admit exists. By the end of the book, I found the author's picture on the back cover was the perfect capper. She is wearing sunglasses and blowing bubble gum to obscure what she looks like, her small arms tossed up in a faux gangster pose.
kellyp's review
3.0
Some good stuff, some ugh. Can't believe I had this for so many years without realizing it's illustrated by the mighty Vanessa Davis.
omgitstricia's review
1.0
Yeah, feeling some commendatory after seeing numerous one star reviews. This diary sucks, also pretty sure she voluntary published this which had I known beforehand I would not have purchased it. You can't publish your own diary, I mean come on who does that? I keep a diary too but would never be narcissistic enough, to take it to a publisher. It's diary books 101: someone else has to stubble upon it and be like this is some good shit lets publish it.
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