Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson

 

Hello my lovely readers!

I had a potato weekend this past weekend and did nothing but read this book (in between sleeping, eating and just relaxing with hubby). I couldn't put it down! Let's get into it.

SUMMARY
The two diaries of teenagers "Alice" and "Jay" created two separate social panics.

The 1971 anonymous diary Go Ask Alice  reinvented the young adult genre with its portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. It was the musings of a middle-class All-American teenage girl who becomes hooked on drugs, in particular LSD.

Eight years later, in 1979, another diary rattles the culture. Jay's Journal shares the life of an alleged teenage Satanist name "Jay." It sets off a firestorm of literal witch hunts, a string of adolescent suicide and shatters communities.

But both diaries came from the same dark place: a woman named Beatrice Sparks who stopped at nothing to gain fame and adulation.

MY THOUGHTS
I was thrilled to read this book and even more thrilled to read it with a fellow Bookstagrammer. 

As I've stated before in my Books that Shaped Me series, I absolutely DEVOURED anything that was "edited" by Beatrice Sparks. I was on a huge diary kick after reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Years later, I realized that Sparks was a fraud who wrote all these diaries and I was eager to see what her life was like.

This book gives the full picture to both "Alice" and "Jay," who they were, what their personalities were like, their families etc. It gives great background to who Sparks was and some insight into why she wanted to become famous.

I would give it five stars, but unfortunately, I can only give it three stars. The author, Rick Emerson provided NO references or notes or anything to back up what he's saying...kind of like Sparks, the woman who he's criticizing. His reasoning for not including references? "You can Google it."

Really? It left such a sour taste in my mouth. How or why should I believe that anything you're writing in this book is true without proof? 

Also, he italicized EVERYTHING. Italics are supposed to be used for emphasis or titles, but this guy...whew, I guess everything was important in this book! It was a good book but I'm torn between whether I should keep this on my shelf because of the lack of references. Hmmm....