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Secret Diaries #1
Temptation
Consumed by her desire to be the one that Penn loves, Joanna nevertheless has some reservations that she records in her diary, a book that becomes a shocking chronicle of monstrous evil and puts her life in danger
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 24, 2008
I loved these books when I was in high school. I read them over and over. The name "Penn" for a guy sounded really sexy to me... what can I say? I was a teenager.
December 25, 2019
I was obsessed with this trilogy as a teenager! I’m in a nostalgia phase and had memories of these books and felt like reading them again. It’s a good thing the books are available on Kindle-otherwise they seem hard to find in print. I was a bit afraid to re-read these books as an adult- sometimes you realize that books you loved as a child were not actually that good, and now your memory are "spoiled". But I still think these books are amazing - even if you know who the murderer is from Book 2, it’s extremely suspenseful and the characters/B plots are all well-written/developed. As other reviewers mentioned, the story is pretty spread out and could probably be crammed into a bigger book or two books only - but I liked the slow pace, you really get settled in the story 🙂
It’s also funny that despite this book being written in the 1980s, the storyline based on hacking is still plausible today, despite all technological changes that have occurred ever since 😅
It’s also funny that despite this book being written in the 1980s, the storyline based on hacking is still plausible today, despite all technological changes that have occurred ever since 😅
June 25, 2014
This is a difficult Y/A book to find now. My memories as a teenager when I walked in Waldenbooks (the great fondness of their amazing buy 1 get 1 free sales, which is no longer around sadly) while browsing in the Young Adult section. This book piqued my interest from the cover and it was the sort of genre I was into at the time (R.L Stine, Christopher Pike, etc.). I have some vague memories now of the story, but I do remembered turning the page quickly at night on this one. It took awhile to find finally, "The Secret Diaries (vol. 1- 3)," to satisfy my taste of nostalgia as an adult.
June 22, 2022
One of my favorite books from high school.
April 30, 2025
Someone, or maybe the people at Half Price Books didn't get around to that one yet, decided to hand over their copies of the first two books in Janice Harrell's The Secret Diaries series. I couldn't find a reasonable priced decent copy on Thriftbooks for the last book in the trilogy, so I had to buy a reprint paperback edition on Amazon.
I cannot read a series if I don't have all the books especially in an older series from the 1980s or 1990s so I had these on my shelf for quite a while just in case the story was good so I could continue.
The Secret Diaries is good...so far.
We build up a little bit of information with our main cast of characters and the lead protagonist, Joanna Rigsby.
Joanna has decided to come and live with her father in North Carolina after deciding she didn't want to live with her mother and go to an all-girl school with uniforms and religion. Her father is a workaholic who seems to enjoy his space, but he isn't heartless to just kick his daughter to the curb.
Joanna doesn't have much left of her senior year to finish in high school, but she isn't really good at physics and has a knack for writing. She keeps a diary that is written in a long-practiced code that only Joanna can understand so she writes everything in it. It is how we get some of our exposition alongside dialogue in first person through Joanna.
Joanna gets a girl named Nikki Warren to show her to her first class and Joanna spots a group of teens and only gets a view of a boy with ash-blond hair from the back. Nikki tells Joanna his name is Penn Parrish and that he and his clique of friends aren't really that friendly and Joanna isn't his type.
Ouch and Joanna doesn't really seem to hit it off with her locker mate who is an emo/goth type girl who has to share the space with her since there are not enough lockers at Barton High. Over the days, Joanna begins to acquaint herself from a distance with the clique of Penn Parrish and his friends. The only girl is Tessa West, and she dates Stephen Garner, both of them have dark hair and a love of wearing baggy shirts and pants. The other boy is a redhead named Casey McNamara who Joanna learns is an Internet computer whiz but that he isn't as attractive as Penn or Stephen.
Penn drives a flashy red Corvette and Joanna finds him playing music at a senior assembly which is basically a class slide show of that year's graduating seniors' journey through the four circles of hell...oh I mean high school.
Joanna hears a girl and her boyfriend talking when a picture shows up of a sophomore year car wash and a blonde girl with her arm thrown about Tessa West's shoulder with a smile. The blonde's name is Luarie Jenkins, and she is "missing" with the girl thinking she is dead by suicide while her boyfriend thinks that Laurie ran away.
Almost two weeks settling into town, Joanna sees Penn and Casey at the library on a Saturday when she goes to get a library card to check out books for school. The process of filling out the application and running into Nikki actually proves to be a good thing as it makes Penn take notice of Joanna, trying to get Nikki off her back about extracurricular activities for college applications.
Penn invites Joanna to join the group of friends at the local coffee shop called The Bakery to Casey's surprise. The meeting seems to be awkward at first as Joanna can sense a tension in both Penn and Stephen, but Tessa is friendly even though Casey is shown to have no tact. All of them but Casey gets reserved when Joanna mentions Laurie Jenkins being missing and innocently asking if all of them were friends with her like Tessa.
Mention is given that Joanna's locker mate, the girl named Koo Ambler of the white make-up and black leather, dated Penn for a while. Joanna ends up catching a ride back to her car with Stephen and Tessa where the girl lets Joanna know that Penn dated Koo as a sort of "rebellion" when his mother left his dad.
Soon, Joanna has become a part of the gang, and she finds herself falling in love with Penn and the feeling seems to be quite mutual. Besides Koo seeming to be jealous of Joanna grabbing Penn's attention, there is still the problem of this clique having a secret among them with Joanna as an outsider.
A secret that involves Laurie Jenkins whom Joanna learns lived across the street from her with her mom, stepfather and her stepbrother, a guy named Bobby with a washed-out football player physique and a bad temper. Bobby's somewhat redeeming quality is that he is taking care of Laurie's Irish Setter named Blue in hopes that she'll come home.
We learn exactly what is going on, but it really isn't too much of a mystery to know that Laurie Jenkins won't be coming home anytime soon...
Tension is built up in all the right places and Joanna proves to be a very intelligent heroine as she starts to put pieces together. Penn and his friends don't seem to be bad people but oh man, Casey is the most annoying character!
Sexist and overconfident in his own skills and intelligence, it seems to be a foreshadowing of what is to come for Casey as Temptation ends with Betrayal in its wake.
I cannot read a series if I don't have all the books especially in an older series from the 1980s or 1990s so I had these on my shelf for quite a while just in case the story was good so I could continue.
The Secret Diaries is good...so far.
We build up a little bit of information with our main cast of characters and the lead protagonist, Joanna Rigsby.
Joanna has decided to come and live with her father in North Carolina after deciding she didn't want to live with her mother and go to an all-girl school with uniforms and religion. Her father is a workaholic who seems to enjoy his space, but he isn't heartless to just kick his daughter to the curb.
Joanna doesn't have much left of her senior year to finish in high school, but she isn't really good at physics and has a knack for writing. She keeps a diary that is written in a long-practiced code that only Joanna can understand so she writes everything in it. It is how we get some of our exposition alongside dialogue in first person through Joanna.
Joanna gets a girl named Nikki Warren to show her to her first class and Joanna spots a group of teens and only gets a view of a boy with ash-blond hair from the back. Nikki tells Joanna his name is Penn Parrish and that he and his clique of friends aren't really that friendly and Joanna isn't his type.
Ouch and Joanna doesn't really seem to hit it off with her locker mate who is an emo/goth type girl who has to share the space with her since there are not enough lockers at Barton High. Over the days, Joanna begins to acquaint herself from a distance with the clique of Penn Parrish and his friends. The only girl is Tessa West, and she dates Stephen Garner, both of them have dark hair and a love of wearing baggy shirts and pants. The other boy is a redhead named Casey McNamara who Joanna learns is an Internet computer whiz but that he isn't as attractive as Penn or Stephen.
Penn drives a flashy red Corvette and Joanna finds him playing music at a senior assembly which is basically a class slide show of that year's graduating seniors' journey through the four circles of hell...oh I mean high school.
Joanna hears a girl and her boyfriend talking when a picture shows up of a sophomore year car wash and a blonde girl with her arm thrown about Tessa West's shoulder with a smile. The blonde's name is Luarie Jenkins, and she is "missing" with the girl thinking she is dead by suicide while her boyfriend thinks that Laurie ran away.
Almost two weeks settling into town, Joanna sees Penn and Casey at the library on a Saturday when she goes to get a library card to check out books for school. The process of filling out the application and running into Nikki actually proves to be a good thing as it makes Penn take notice of Joanna, trying to get Nikki off her back about extracurricular activities for college applications.
Penn invites Joanna to join the group of friends at the local coffee shop called The Bakery to Casey's surprise. The meeting seems to be awkward at first as Joanna can sense a tension in both Penn and Stephen, but Tessa is friendly even though Casey is shown to have no tact. All of them but Casey gets reserved when Joanna mentions Laurie Jenkins being missing and innocently asking if all of them were friends with her like Tessa.
Mention is given that Joanna's locker mate, the girl named Koo Ambler of the white make-up and black leather, dated Penn for a while. Joanna ends up catching a ride back to her car with Stephen and Tessa where the girl lets Joanna know that Penn dated Koo as a sort of "rebellion" when his mother left his dad.
Soon, Joanna has become a part of the gang, and she finds herself falling in love with Penn and the feeling seems to be quite mutual. Besides Koo seeming to be jealous of Joanna grabbing Penn's attention, there is still the problem of this clique having a secret among them with Joanna as an outsider.
A secret that involves Laurie Jenkins whom Joanna learns lived across the street from her with her mom, stepfather and her stepbrother, a guy named Bobby with a washed-out football player physique and a bad temper. Bobby's somewhat redeeming quality is that he is taking care of Laurie's Irish Setter named Blue in hopes that she'll come home.
We learn exactly what is going on, but it really isn't too much of a mystery to know that Laurie Jenkins won't be coming home anytime soon...
Tension is built up in all the right places and Joanna proves to be a very intelligent heroine as she starts to put pieces together. Penn and his friends don't seem to be bad people but oh man, Casey is the most annoying character!
Sexist and overconfident in his own skills and intelligence, it seems to be a foreshadowing of what is to come for Casey as Temptation ends with Betrayal in its wake.
January 21, 2021
This book is pretty suspenseful. It's not until the very end that you figure out what's going on, or at least to a point. I'm in part 2 now and I can't get enough of this story!
January 23, 2009
I was always drawn to books by cover art. I guess I was always judging books by their cover! At any rate, as a teen I loved this trilogy of books and used to have nightmares about a scene from the final book.
August 26, 2014
Absolutely loved this book when I came across it in about 7-8th grade! Since it was out of print I waited 4-5 years until I was 18 so I could finally order the other two books on eBay! Absolutely one of the best books from my teen years ... Still good for a light read
June 12, 2020
These were some of my favourite books in my early teenage years. I had gone from reading the sweet and simple "Babysitter's Club" and these were my first steps into a bit of a darker world. Loved them and think they are still a good read.
April 12, 2016
I read this in middle school, loved it. Very suspenseful at the time.
May 16, 2011
I loved this series when I was a kid and it turns out I still love it. There isn't much depth but it's fun and I always loved the characters. Maybe because they were so different.
Want to read
September 14, 2020I was OBSESSED with this trilogy as a kid, but haven’t been able to remember the name of it for over 20 years. Every now and then I would google “trilogy where girl keeps a coded diary” with no results, and I didn’t think I would ever find it again.
But, lo and behold I finally found it today on a list featuring series from the 90’s! I doubt I will ever be able to track down a copy of this (or any of the three books) but I have to add it to my shelf since I finally found it again after all these years.
But, lo and behold I finally found it today on a list featuring series from the 90’s! I doubt I will ever be able to track down a copy of this (or any of the three books) but I have to add it to my shelf since I finally found it again after all these years.
February 14, 2023
I found the ending very predictable, the characters weren't fleshed out and lacked depth, but it was a quick and easy read. Also hated that our main character fell into the insta-love trope, Joanna gives almost no reasoning for her attraction to Penn, when we first met Penn he was as interesting as drywall, but I'm supposed to believe there is a magnetic attraction between the two.
August 15, 2020
Overall the story was great, but I wish there were a few more breadcrumbs scattered throughout. Made for a little slower pace than I would have liked, though it was a little bigger than the typical YA Thriller from Scholastic Fiction. Let's hope the second book in the trilogy picks up the pace!
October 5, 2018
This was a nostalgia read for me. I remember being obsessed with these books as a teen. This book is Twilight, but without vampires. The plot is pretty much identical.
February 7, 2022
Nostalgia reread
April 7, 2014
I found this book in a bag of books that my mom had when I was home this past weekend. She never runs out of things to read since she passes books on to other people and gets them from other people. I LOVE looking through them everytime I go home because you never know what you will find.
Anyways, I decided to give this one a try and I pretty much couldn't put it down! I read most if it last night and just finished it today. It seems like it should be horror but I think it is more suspense/thriller. I've never heard of this author before. I am hoping that I won't have a hard time finding the last two books in the series though. Hopefully amazon will have them.
Penn is one of the main characters names which I thought was pretty unique. Good read for sure. :)
Anyways, I decided to give this one a try and I pretty much couldn't put it down! I read most if it last night and just finished it today. It seems like it should be horror but I think it is more suspense/thriller. I've never heard of this author before. I am hoping that I won't have a hard time finding the last two books in the series though. Hopefully amazon will have them.
Penn is one of the main characters names which I thought was pretty unique. Good read for sure. :)
April 17, 2012
You can read my review here: http://wp.me/p2b9fU-dL
April 15, 2014
I loved this trilogy as a teenager. Hoping I can find it on Amazon to reread it for nostalgias' sake. :)
November 18, 2014
I remember really liking this book as a teenager but not sure how i'd feel about it now.
April 14, 2016
Loved this book as a teenager: just as good as an adult.
November 13, 2024
I keep trying to write this book I think??
Or maybe just the part at the cabin
Or maybe just the part at the cabin
March 3, 2014
Kaut kad skolas laikā izlasīju visu triloģiju ar lielu aizrautību. Ļoti patika.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews