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Dear Diary
Dear Diary is a collection of more than ten years of diary entries (based on the hugely popular monthly feature in Vice Magazine) juxtaposed against present-day updates that take us from Lesley Arfin’s middle school years in the early 90s to her clean and sober twentysomething years in New York City. When she wrote about Cynthia Karacas (it’s funny how you remember everyone’s first and last name like that) making her feel "retarded" back in 10th grade, the world was a dark, lonely place and she could see no light at the end of the tunnel. When she discovered heroin, things got even worse. Today, with the perspective that only rock bottom can give you, Lesley looks back on the apocalypse that was adolescence and asks, "What the hell was I talking about?" Lesley’s hilarious updates remind us how heavy it all seemed back then and how irrelevant it all really is in the face of adulthood. When she digs up all her old friends and enemies to get their take on each entry, a whole new perspective is added. Some are eager to apologize, while others are still mad because, "Let’s face it, you were a loser." No matter whom she talks to about the days we all discovered sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, one thing is abundantly we were ridiculous.
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2007
61 people are currently reading
6746 people want to read
About the author
Lesley Arfin
9 books59 followersLesley Arfin has been writing professionally since 2001. She graduated from Hampshire College and immediately started an internship at Vice magazine, where she then went on to write a number of articles, as well as her own column, "Dear Diary."
In 2007 her book, Dear Diary, based on the column, was published by Vice Books/MTV Press. The introduction to the book was written by Chloe Sevigny.
Lesley is the former Editor-In-Chief of Missbehave magazine.
She has freelanced for a number of publications: Jezebel.com, Jane, Nylon, iD, America, Purple, Paper, Jalouse, and she is currently the New York contributor to Australian magazine, Russh. Lesley has written columns for websites such as Street Carnage, Buzz Net, and Thought Catalog. She penned the introduction to the 2010 interior design/photo book The Selby: In Your Place.
Lesley has done commercial work for clients such as XBox, Burton, Sophomore, Kanon Vodka, and Nike.
She currently works as staff writer on the HBO series Girls, created by Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) and produced by Judd Apatow.
In 2007 her book, Dear Diary, based on the column, was published by Vice Books/MTV Press. The introduction to the book was written by Chloe Sevigny.
Lesley is the former Editor-In-Chief of Missbehave magazine.
She has freelanced for a number of publications: Jezebel.com, Jane, Nylon, iD, America, Purple, Paper, Jalouse, and she is currently the New York contributor to Australian magazine, Russh. Lesley has written columns for websites such as Street Carnage, Buzz Net, and Thought Catalog. She penned the introduction to the 2010 interior design/photo book The Selby: In Your Place.
Lesley has done commercial work for clients such as XBox, Burton, Sophomore, Kanon Vodka, and Nike.
She currently works as staff writer on the HBO series Girls, created by Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) and produced by Judd Apatow.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 202 reviews
February 7, 2008
maybe it's just me. maybe we got off to a bad start when she said she was punk in 1993 at the age of 14 (i thought it DIED when i was 15 in 1983). and maybe i can't relate to a 27 year old whose parents supported her so she could go to hampshire college, and become a heroin addict. i found her book boring and self indulgent which, i think, is exactly what a diary is, interesting to arfin and her friends ONLY. her fucking isn't that hot, her writing is ... well, she's no anais nin. her best line: being sad is like wanting to be nothing at all. of course, this follows: i wanted to take a train around the country and meet people and be a hippie. enough said.
April 30, 2015
Full disclosure: There is a lot (A LOT) in Lesley Arfin’s “Diary” to which I straight-up cannot relate. I don’t know what it’s like to do heroin (is that how you say it? “do heroin?”). I’ve never been to rehab. I never had a raver phase. (Should I be upset about that?) But I do remember what it’s like to write in my diary as a pre-adolescent girl about how terrifying and strange it felt to start 6th grade. And, unlike Arfin, I never want to show my diaries to anyone, let alone publish them for the world to read. You can call her a junkie or a slut or any other word she’s probably already called herself, but I would be willing to call anyone willing to share their darkest moments with complete strangers brave.
The setup is actually pretty clever: Arfin goes through her old diaries, rehashing and reliving some of her most horrifying moments as a teenager, and also comments on them. Even more cringe-inducing, she interviews people who were involved with the (often mortifying) journal entries to get their take. (This is also something I can’t relate to. I still refuse to go to the grocery store when I visit my parents in case Tommy Amoroso is visiting his parents and we run into each other in the produce section. I already lost my virginity, Tommy; I don’t need visitation rights to it.) This wrinkle in the editorial process produces some fascinating results and new perspectives on what would otherwise be (and still kind of is) a whole lot of navel gazing.
Readers who are past the point of Arfin’s stories, and even those who are older than Arfin now, are quick to criticize this book as self-indulgent, solipsistic and romanticizing drug addiction. To those readers, I say be grateful for the hard-earned wisdom that comes with age. You’ve moved far beyond Arfin’s years of doing mushrooms senior year or getting addicted to heroin. Maybe you never even came close to anything that harrowing, or maybe you just knew it wasn’t for you from the start. It’s easy to look at someone’s past and point out all their mistakes. Hindsight is 20/20, and it gets sharper as our own eyesight dulls with age. Arfin might have fun reliving her addled, crazy youth, but she’s not proud of it, no matter how insouciant her phrasing.
She can’t change the past, and in publishing her diaries, she can no longer hope to rewrite it. (Sorry, girl.) But in reviewing it in such granular detail years later, she can attempt to better understand the girl she was to make sense of who she’s become. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and for as barbed and sarcastically funny as Arfin’s trip down memory lane is, she doesn’t seem too keen to repeat her youth anytime soon. In today’s youth-obsessed culture, such an admission is perhaps the most shocking thing in all of Arfin’s tales from the city: Youth is only fully understandable (and often only palatable) in a rearview mirror.
The setup is actually pretty clever: Arfin goes through her old diaries, rehashing and reliving some of her most horrifying moments as a teenager, and also comments on them. Even more cringe-inducing, she interviews people who were involved with the (often mortifying) journal entries to get their take. (This is also something I can’t relate to. I still refuse to go to the grocery store when I visit my parents in case Tommy Amoroso is visiting his parents and we run into each other in the produce section. I already lost my virginity, Tommy; I don’t need visitation rights to it.) This wrinkle in the editorial process produces some fascinating results and new perspectives on what would otherwise be (and still kind of is) a whole lot of navel gazing.
Readers who are past the point of Arfin’s stories, and even those who are older than Arfin now, are quick to criticize this book as self-indulgent, solipsistic and romanticizing drug addiction. To those readers, I say be grateful for the hard-earned wisdom that comes with age. You’ve moved far beyond Arfin’s years of doing mushrooms senior year or getting addicted to heroin. Maybe you never even came close to anything that harrowing, or maybe you just knew it wasn’t for you from the start. It’s easy to look at someone’s past and point out all their mistakes. Hindsight is 20/20, and it gets sharper as our own eyesight dulls with age. Arfin might have fun reliving her addled, crazy youth, but she’s not proud of it, no matter how insouciant her phrasing.
"The next ten years went: popular and cool, then persona non grata, then slut, then punk rock chick, then raver, then heroin addict, then clean, then writing this book..."
She can’t change the past, and in publishing her diaries, she can no longer hope to rewrite it. (Sorry, girl.) But in reviewing it in such granular detail years later, she can attempt to better understand the girl she was to make sense of who she’s become. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and for as barbed and sarcastically funny as Arfin’s trip down memory lane is, she doesn’t seem too keen to repeat her youth anytime soon. In today’s youth-obsessed culture, such an admission is perhaps the most shocking thing in all of Arfin’s tales from the city: Youth is only fully understandable (and often only palatable) in a rearview mirror.
January 3, 2009
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.
November 4, 2007
Lesley Arfin is not an extraordinary girl. She grew up a Jewish American Princess in Long Island, endured the same cattiness and extreme self-consciousness all teenagers suffer through, became a punk, then a raver, then went off to college — and became a full-blown junkie.
How does someone go from kick line and crushes and mosh pits to Ecstasy and crystal meth and heroin? That’s what Arfin, now 28 and “straightedge,” would like to know. "Dear Diary" is an extension of the column she writes for hipster tome Vice Magazine, in which she publishes entries from the journal she has kept since middle school and tries to figure out how what she went through then made her the person she is today. Admittedly, it’s a brave concept. No one enjoys looking at pictures of themselves when they were younger, let alone making public every private insecurity and underdeveloped thought they’ve had from the age of 11. Even ballsier is Arfin’s decision to track down those who have since left her life and ask them to explain their actions toward her.
Balls is not what the book lacks. What it lacks is the ability to transcend mere autobiography. Arfin wants her experience to say something about adolescence in general: “My diary entries became not just my life story. They’re every girl’s life story,” she writes. “You’re not me, but you’re kind of me.” This is basically true. Actress Chloë Sevigny co-signs this point in her introduction. She and Arfin had a similar upbringing, except where Arfin descended into drugs, Sevigny went off and gave Vincent Gallo an on-camera blowjob. Both are terrible mistakes — different kinds of mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless — and mistakes is what "Dear Diary" is about. Everyone makes them, boys included.
But while the diary gimmick is what makes Arfin’s story worth reading at all, it is also what ultimately turns reading the book into little more than an exercise in base voyeurism. The design contributes to this effect: The magnetized back cover folds over to the front revealing the image of a padlock, and it even has the sweet, stale scent that would accompany a young girl’s actual diary (I imagine). It’s like finding the Ark of the Covenant in your girlfriend’s closet. Arfin’s frank descriptions of her sexual and pharmaceutical encounters — which, ironically, are more graphic in the retrospective updates she wrote with the intention of everyone seeing than in the personal, of-the-moment entries — are admirable, but as the book goes on the interest grows increasingly more prurient. This might reflect more on the reader than the author, but she certainly doesn’t try to dissuade it: On the very first page, she includes an “Experience Timeline,” which charts what she did and when. Seeing that she loses her virginity and starts taking mushrooms and acid in 12th grade makes you want to skip past the years of heavy petting, pot and psychological cruelty at the hands of her so-called “frienemies,” which means ignoring the stuff that possibly explains why she got hooked on heroin during her sophomore year in college.
Even if you read straight through, though, Arfin never really finds an answer to the “How did I get here?” question. Her interviews with the people from her past unfortunately don’t produce much in the way of revelations; they mostly end up as one-sided conversations. She had daddy issues, culminating in one beating at his hands, but for the most part her childhood was no more traumatic than anyone else’s.
And that seems to be Arfin’s point. Her getting into drugs wasn’t the result of an unusually harrowing background or compensation for a particularly crippling self-image. It was simply a choice. She doesn’t try to convince teenage girls to take another path — this isn’t a PSA. She just wants them to know what they might be getting into.
How does someone go from kick line and crushes and mosh pits to Ecstasy and crystal meth and heroin? That’s what Arfin, now 28 and “straightedge,” would like to know. "Dear Diary" is an extension of the column she writes for hipster tome Vice Magazine, in which she publishes entries from the journal she has kept since middle school and tries to figure out how what she went through then made her the person she is today. Admittedly, it’s a brave concept. No one enjoys looking at pictures of themselves when they were younger, let alone making public every private insecurity and underdeveloped thought they’ve had from the age of 11. Even ballsier is Arfin’s decision to track down those who have since left her life and ask them to explain their actions toward her.
Balls is not what the book lacks. What it lacks is the ability to transcend mere autobiography. Arfin wants her experience to say something about adolescence in general: “My diary entries became not just my life story. They’re every girl’s life story,” she writes. “You’re not me, but you’re kind of me.” This is basically true. Actress Chloë Sevigny co-signs this point in her introduction. She and Arfin had a similar upbringing, except where Arfin descended into drugs, Sevigny went off and gave Vincent Gallo an on-camera blowjob. Both are terrible mistakes — different kinds of mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless — and mistakes is what "Dear Diary" is about. Everyone makes them, boys included.
But while the diary gimmick is what makes Arfin’s story worth reading at all, it is also what ultimately turns reading the book into little more than an exercise in base voyeurism. The design contributes to this effect: The magnetized back cover folds over to the front revealing the image of a padlock, and it even has the sweet, stale scent that would accompany a young girl’s actual diary (I imagine). It’s like finding the Ark of the Covenant in your girlfriend’s closet. Arfin’s frank descriptions of her sexual and pharmaceutical encounters — which, ironically, are more graphic in the retrospective updates she wrote with the intention of everyone seeing than in the personal, of-the-moment entries — are admirable, but as the book goes on the interest grows increasingly more prurient. This might reflect more on the reader than the author, but she certainly doesn’t try to dissuade it: On the very first page, she includes an “Experience Timeline,” which charts what she did and when. Seeing that she loses her virginity and starts taking mushrooms and acid in 12th grade makes you want to skip past the years of heavy petting, pot and psychological cruelty at the hands of her so-called “frienemies,” which means ignoring the stuff that possibly explains why she got hooked on heroin during her sophomore year in college.
Even if you read straight through, though, Arfin never really finds an answer to the “How did I get here?” question. Her interviews with the people from her past unfortunately don’t produce much in the way of revelations; they mostly end up as one-sided conversations. She had daddy issues, culminating in one beating at his hands, but for the most part her childhood was no more traumatic than anyone else’s.
And that seems to be Arfin’s point. Her getting into drugs wasn’t the result of an unusually harrowing background or compensation for a particularly crippling self-image. It was simply a choice. She doesn’t try to convince teenage girls to take another path — this isn’t a PSA. She just wants them to know what they might be getting into.
October 21, 2011
2.5 stars
I'm on the edge with this one and it's not of glory either. (Lady Gaga fans put your paws up!)
I liked the format a lot. I liked that she took the entries straight out of her personal diaries and then reflected upon it from her older self and interviewed the people involved with those entries. That was what made me stick with it and read it to the very end because Lesley Arfin has some big cajones for airing her personal laundry for all to see and read.
But (and it's a big one) I didn't like her spoiled bratty romanticism of her druggy ways. I'll admit I have a huge problem reading about drug addiction in memoirs for this reason alone. Sure, she admitted there's nothing romantic about it, yet, she spent a ton of time rehashing those memories.
I may not of come from Long Island, but I did come from upstate New York and saw way too many of my friends (especially those who were really fantastically artsy) die from heroin overdoses. That's why I never felt the urge to experiment with these kinds of drugs, even though they were prevelant in the punk rock and rave scenes, which I would frequent for the music. However, even there I was considered an outcast for not experimenting enough. Oh well, at least I'm still alive and I'm glad Lesley is too.
I'm on the edge with this one and it's not of glory either. (Lady Gaga fans put your paws up!)
I liked the format a lot. I liked that she took the entries straight out of her personal diaries and then reflected upon it from her older self and interviewed the people involved with those entries. That was what made me stick with it and read it to the very end because Lesley Arfin has some big cajones for airing her personal laundry for all to see and read.
But (and it's a big one) I didn't like her spoiled bratty romanticism of her druggy ways. I'll admit I have a huge problem reading about drug addiction in memoirs for this reason alone. Sure, she admitted there's nothing romantic about it, yet, she spent a ton of time rehashing those memories.
I may not of come from Long Island, but I did come from upstate New York and saw way too many of my friends (especially those who were really fantastically artsy) die from heroin overdoses. That's why I never felt the urge to experiment with these kinds of drugs, even though they were prevelant in the punk rock and rave scenes, which I would frequent for the music. However, even there I was considered an outcast for not experimenting enough. Oh well, at least I'm still alive and I'm glad Lesley is too.
February 7, 2017
Este libro es tan insoportable como su narradora, que se dedica a recordar entradas de su diario desde que era adolescente hasta que llega a la adultez y luego «reflexionar» sobre las anécdotas, así como entrevistar muy de pasada y sin ninguna relevancia a las personas a las que hace referencia en ellas. Vamos, que es una oda a mira lo guay y rebelde que he sido en mi juventud y probablemente sea una lectura interesante para ella misma y poco más. Una absoluta pérdida de tiempo que solo muestra a una persona frívola, vacía, superficial, que no ha madurado un ápice en los supuestos años que hay de diferencia entre las entradas de diario y las reflexiones «adultas». Mantiene una actitud de canallita durante toda la narración que echa para atrás y además no se muestra ni siquiera crítica o consecuente con algunos aspectos que podrían ser interesantes como la sexualidad, la educación, el consumo de drogas, etc.
August 2, 2007
self-indulgent to say the least.
i found a lot of it rather boring and the quality of writing was poor. [does she really think it's okay to publish a book using abbreviated forms of words such as "btw" and "jk?"-i get it. and it makes me embarassed for this aging hipster.]
i won't say that i disliked it though. i'm a pop-culturist and this is pop-culture at it's best. the author is only a few years older than me so it was nice little trip down memory lane. a fun, quick read but i don't think it will save any lives.
i found a lot of it rather boring and the quality of writing was poor. [does she really think it's okay to publish a book using abbreviated forms of words such as "btw" and "jk?"-i get it. and it makes me embarassed for this aging hipster.]
i won't say that i disliked it though. i'm a pop-culturist and this is pop-culture at it's best. the author is only a few years older than me so it was nice little trip down memory lane. a fun, quick read but i don't think it will save any lives.
September 21, 2010
This book gave me a peek into what it might have been like, had I run rampant with my adolescent/early adulthood drug use. Oh, and had I not been terrified of needles. Lesley Arfin's journal entries (and especially her observations from an older age) really rang true to me, capturing the insecurities and desperation to please that I think all young girls go through. This book felt honest, thoughtful, and her writing style made me laugh aloud numerous times. Special excitement bonus points for the awesome illustrations by one of my favorite cartoonists, Vanessa Davis!
August 13, 2010
i have a "thing" for diary-type books. either real of fictionalized, even if they are schlocky airport fare i can never say no. luckliy, this book isn't - lesley writes this memoir that is half diary entries from her personal journals and half commentary on those entries and where she was in her life when she wrote them like a letter to an old friend from back home. it helps that she has led an interesting and adventurous life thus far- and dear diary reflects that in its smart yet snarky recollections of wasted youth. did you ever want to ask that snotty girl in grade school who treated you like shit all the time what her deal was? well, lesley did. read about it here, then stalk her online like i do.
May 17, 2013
In this book with Diary pages that have dirty secrets that come funny and clever talk about Lesley’s life story and everything she likes and does in her teen and young adult stages. She talks about just everything possible you could imagine and things that would be way out of your mind to think about. The main focus in Dear Diary is talking about how Lesleys repeated mistakes lead her into drugs and how her drug addiction got stronger, she ended up going to rehab twice. Lesley’s main point for everyone that reads her Diary is that it’s okay to not know what you want all the time with your life and that it’s okay to not be perfect and make mistakes and still live.
January 1, 2018
Love - love - love.
A shocking turn to a woman's life and her gritty recollection of some dark times in her life. This woman has come a long way and is someone who is remarkably talented.
A shocking turn to a woman's life and her gritty recollection of some dark times in her life. This woman has come a long way and is someone who is remarkably talented.
May 15, 2020
Clearly, she's a gifted humorist. Her subsequent career in television writing pretty much clinches that. I made myself finish the book. I bet she writes something fascinating in a later phase of her life and career. I think there was a clusterfuck of intentions in selecting a "target audience" for this book, which was determined to be ___? Girls and young women? Eighth-generation punk rockers? New Yorkers who can't decide between being upwardly or downwardly mobile? I dunno. Call me cynical, but I suspected most of the diary entries were reverse-engineered from memory and I wondered how much of this was actually a novelization of her life filtered through a list of VICE-approved renegade desiderata. I think the author comes through as a likeable pragmatist/existentialist. But if one is going to write about a long-term drug addiction, I think one owes that experience a little more reflection and seriousness. Summing up years of hell in a few quips and one-liners just leaves a bad taste in the reader's mouth. I wouldn't be surprised if Arfin feels very far from this book now. Maybe in one's twenties the best face one can put on one's trauma is a twee face. If so, mission accomplished.
January 1, 2021
The author intends this to be "for all girls who were ever a teenager" but it's pretty tone-deaf about race, class, you name it. That's ok, it's a perfectly solid "doesn't-yet-have-actual-retrospective-clarity-or-maturity" memoir about being a spoiled teenager who goes to rehab twice, including the Betty Ford Center itself. I would say it would be stronger if it
*didn't try to be wise in its narration
*didn't pitch itself as a "universal" story
*spent more time in places other than the very end on being a writer or otherwise didn't claim to be a writer
If you didn't grow up privileged on the east coast you may have an exasperated experience more like my own (however, if you grew up reading Stoneybrook, CT Babysitters Club titles it's sort of a funny spin-off of them). Definitely would not gift it to a young person you know unless they too can afford to go to rehab twice Betty Ford Center itself. If you (a) enjoyed HBO's "Girls" (Arfin was a writer) for the writing even though (b) the characters were ultimately pretty insufferable, especially when the show tried to "diversify" itself then you'll get plenty of the latter here.
tl;dr it's a Vice book!
*didn't try to be wise in its narration
*didn't pitch itself as a "universal" story
*spent more time in places other than the very end on being a writer or otherwise didn't claim to be a writer
If you didn't grow up privileged on the east coast you may have an exasperated experience more like my own (however, if you grew up reading Stoneybrook, CT Babysitters Club titles it's sort of a funny spin-off of them). Definitely would not gift it to a young person you know unless they too can afford to go to rehab twice Betty Ford Center itself. If you (a) enjoyed HBO's "Girls" (Arfin was a writer) for the writing even though (b) the characters were ultimately pretty insufferable, especially when the show tried to "diversify" itself then you'll get plenty of the latter here.
tl;dr it's a Vice book!
April 22, 2018
an experiment not a book
February 14, 2013
I came across this book at a really cool bookstore in Baltimore where John Waters apparently picks up his fan mail. I'd not heard of Lesley Arfin, but apparently she writes for Rookie and I adore Rookie and the aforementioned bookstore was also selling copies of Rookie Yearbook One.
So I said, "What the hell" and decided to read it.
And what a goddamned waste of time it was.
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm boring. Maybe I had the world's most uneventful adolescence. But this book pissed me off. Literally all I got out of it was "I'm a rich white girl whose parents cover all my bills so I can go to Hampshire College and do all kinds of drugs. And even though I completely fuck up consistently, I somehow manage to land an internship with a magazine and write stuff in New York CIty and ugh why doesn't anyone like me?"
Like, holy damn privilege.
She made an effort, in the afterward, to explain her point in publishing this diary, but it really didn't speak to me.
And by no means do I mean to demonize addiction here. I get that it's an actual disease and not something that anyone should shun. But I just didn't appreciate how literally every diary entry from age 12 to 25 was like, "Whatever I'm just going to get high fuck everything." Really? Has your perspective not changed at all in 13 years?
I feel like my review is very harsh. But in my defense, I read the book through 'til the end because I so hoped it would get better.
But it just didn't.
So I said, "What the hell" and decided to read it.
And what a goddamned waste of time it was.
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm boring. Maybe I had the world's most uneventful adolescence. But this book pissed me off. Literally all I got out of it was "I'm a rich white girl whose parents cover all my bills so I can go to Hampshire College and do all kinds of drugs. And even though I completely fuck up consistently, I somehow manage to land an internship with a magazine and write stuff in New York CIty and ugh why doesn't anyone like me?"
Like, holy damn privilege.
She made an effort, in the afterward, to explain her point in publishing this diary, but it really didn't speak to me.
And by no means do I mean to demonize addiction here. I get that it's an actual disease and not something that anyone should shun. But I just didn't appreciate how literally every diary entry from age 12 to 25 was like, "Whatever I'm just going to get high fuck everything." Really? Has your perspective not changed at all in 13 years?
I feel like my review is very harsh. But in my defense, I read the book through 'til the end because I so hoped it would get better.
But it just didn't.
August 22, 2008
Oh where do I begin...
I guess I will begin with I was very disappointed with this book. I read reviews that compares this book to "Go Ask Alice"... ha. Whoever wrote that needs to re-read that book and then re-read "Dear Diary".
I think this book may have been able to be something great, well expect that Arfin lacks any seriously writing ability. And that fact this junkie lived off of her parents money for years... I mean you can't hate on someone for that, shit that would be the life. But then to make a statement like, "it never accured to me that not everyone's parents help them out"...seriously, did this girl live in a bubble?
I expected something great out of this book but it fell short, really really short.
I guess I will begin with I was very disappointed with this book. I read reviews that compares this book to "Go Ask Alice"... ha. Whoever wrote that needs to re-read that book and then re-read "Dear Diary".
I think this book may have been able to be something great, well expect that Arfin lacks any seriously writing ability. And that fact this junkie lived off of her parents money for years... I mean you can't hate on someone for that, shit that would be the life. But then to make a statement like, "it never accured to me that not everyone's parents help them out"...seriously, did this girl live in a bubble?
I expected something great out of this book but it fell short, really really short.
January 15, 2016
This book was terrible...just...terrible. Really.
I found it in my housing association laundry room library... maybe one day I will learn that usually free books are pretty bad. I am soon going to be a librarian, but I got up from reading the last page of this book, walked straight over to my bin and chucked it in.
I *did* fish it out but only because I remembered it wasn't mine to throw away.
Dull, inane, self absorbed, badly written drivel. Don't believe the hype and reviews on the dust jacket.
Oh PS, Gay is not a pejorative adjective. Asshole.
I found it in my housing association laundry room library... maybe one day I will learn that usually free books are pretty bad. I am soon going to be a librarian, but I got up from reading the last page of this book, walked straight over to my bin and chucked it in.
I *did* fish it out but only because I remembered it wasn't mine to throw away.
Dull, inane, self absorbed, badly written drivel. Don't believe the hype and reviews on the dust jacket.
Oh PS, Gay is not a pejorative adjective. Asshole.
August 28, 2009
I was so intrigued by this book - it has the dramatic trifecta: sex, drugs, and rock and roll - that it's hard to believe how bored I was reading it. Even with all of the crazy things that were going on it wasn't fun to read. Lesley is hard to relate to. I felt like she was trying to impress us. I guess it comes down to the fact that I don't know her and she didn't manage to make me care about her story. I couldn't even finish the book.
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August 19, 2008my cuz wrote this !
June 8, 2008
Why does Vice keep sending me books? I do not like them and sometimes, like this one, they have the word "frenemy" in them. And yet they keep showing up in my mailbox.
January 6, 2016
Rating this highly because of its importance to me & my nostalgic view (totally bias), not because of the quality! Haha still great & worth a read!
June 4, 2023
read it in one sitting
January 19, 2012
I picked this one up at McKays because the cover reminded me a lot of Mortified (edited by David Nagel), which I enjoyed. I also needed a book for a quarterly challenge my NBC girls do that is in diary form and the premise for this book sounded hilarious. The book is made up of entries from the author's diary from middle school through her post-college years. She also includes updated commentary on her diary entries and interviews some of the people she wrote about. The back cover blurbs all talk about how funny and poignant it is, etc, etc.
Sorry guys. Not funny. And not poignant. Really, really annoying is more like it. Warning sign #1 should have been the forward by Chloe Sevigny about how this is such a great reflection on the typical high school experience and how everyone can find something to identify with. The one thing that kept me from putting the book down was that I wanted to be sure that I was annoyed by the author's writing not just by the fact that I couldn't identify with anything that ever happened to her. Obviously I'm pretty conservative, so I didn't want my personal opinions on drug use to color my analysis of the author's writing. And I can say with a pretty fair amount of certainty that they didn't. It's just not well done.
First of all, there are a million typos. Beyond the typos, there are several places where I stopped and read sentences over and over again and never could figure out what the author was saying. It was like she would start a thought and forget what she was talking about mid-sentence. Her is a paraphrase of one that really jumped out at me "My friend Charlene, who was never into drugs until she met a man who was a junkie and suddenly she became a junkie overnight." And that would be the end of the thought. And I'd be thinking "This sentence has NO VERB!" - which is fine in certain cases, but this was not intentional. And it happened multiple times.
Finally, I think the author may just be friends with James Frey. My issue with Frey is not that he ficitonalized parts of his memoir (that's why it's a memoir not an autobiography - someone tell Oprah, please) but that he didn't do it well. I've read several other drug use/abuse/troubled family memoirs and not really questioned what the author was telling me. I'm a very trusting person. But in both Frey's book A Million Little Pieces and in Dear Diary I found myself frequently thinking "Really? That really happened? Your were able to get on an airplane with a hole in your face and no one said anything about it? Really???"
I really wanted to like this book, but I'm so confused by the way it was marketed as humorous. Literally not a single funny thing happens. I don't think I even smiled while reading it. It's a definite no as a recommendation and I'm disappointed that I lost the $1 it cost from the discount bin at McKays.
Sorry guys. Not funny. And not poignant. Really, really annoying is more like it. Warning sign #1 should have been the forward by Chloe Sevigny about how this is such a great reflection on the typical high school experience and how everyone can find something to identify with. The one thing that kept me from putting the book down was that I wanted to be sure that I was annoyed by the author's writing not just by the fact that I couldn't identify with anything that ever happened to her. Obviously I'm pretty conservative, so I didn't want my personal opinions on drug use to color my analysis of the author's writing. And I can say with a pretty fair amount of certainty that they didn't. It's just not well done.
First of all, there are a million typos. Beyond the typos, there are several places where I stopped and read sentences over and over again and never could figure out what the author was saying. It was like she would start a thought and forget what she was talking about mid-sentence. Her is a paraphrase of one that really jumped out at me "My friend Charlene, who was never into drugs until she met a man who was a junkie and suddenly she became a junkie overnight." And that would be the end of the thought. And I'd be thinking "This sentence has NO VERB!" - which is fine in certain cases, but this was not intentional. And it happened multiple times.
Finally, I think the author may just be friends with James Frey. My issue with Frey is not that he ficitonalized parts of his memoir (that's why it's a memoir not an autobiography - someone tell Oprah, please) but that he didn't do it well. I've read several other drug use/abuse/troubled family memoirs and not really questioned what the author was telling me. I'm a very trusting person. But in both Frey's book A Million Little Pieces and in Dear Diary I found myself frequently thinking "Really? That really happened? Your were able to get on an airplane with a hole in your face and no one said anything about it? Really???"
I really wanted to like this book, but I'm so confused by the way it was marketed as humorous. Literally not a single funny thing happens. I don't think I even smiled while reading it. It's a definite no as a recommendation and I'm disappointed that I lost the $1 it cost from the discount bin at McKays.
April 26, 2012
Simply did not like this book and wish I could give it less than a whole star. When I picked it up at the library, I didnt know anything about it, I was just attracted to it because I have always been a huge journal keeper. I didnt care for the cover too much, but just assumed it was there because the author was still so young and immature. The original diary entries just didnt strike me as genuine; there was something that didnt feel right about them. But then when I was a teenager struggling with addiction, I was poor and running away and living on the streets. So I fought my initial reaction to the entries. Then we get to the updates. Are you serious??? She shows no real remorse, for lack of a better word, and almost seems encouraging young girls/women to do drugs, sleep around, and screw off school. Ok maybe Im being hard on her. So we get to the last page...she literally tells readers, who she has to know are going to mostly be young girls, that she hopes that everyone reading her book makes the same mistakes that she does (ie. do drugs, sleep around and screw off school). How irresponsible!!!! Doesnt she yet understand how lucky she was to have parents there for her, parents who paid for her two visits to rehab?? Doesnt she understand that there are lots of girls out here who dont have parents to help her; that some of these girls will turn to prostitution to support their habits? That they will make huge mistakes for which the ramifications will continue to impact their lives long after they are clean, if they ever get clean. Shame on Leslie Arfin!!!!!!!
January 15, 2012
if you do not understand irony, please do not read this book. this 'memoir' (can you really write a memoir when you're 27 and the only life experience you have is going to college and doing copious amounts of drugs?) has aspects that kept me reading- blatant juiciness and bad-girl behavior written in a straightforward manner that makes you feel like you're having a conversation with your (pretty annoying) friend.
arfin is obsessed with cool vs. lame which makes me think she is perpetually thirteen years old. or a hipster.for me, the most relatable period in the book was middle school/high school where arfin describes a pretty universal experience for girls who grew up in the past few decades: boys, cliques, alcohol-induced vomiting. arfin seems uncomfortably interested in this time period, unless i couldn't read her complete sarcasm yet.
her perspective throughout the book is pretty frightening if you don't understand her hipster irony which is why i probably wouldn't recommend it to a young girl which seems to be arfin's target audience unless they were very perceptive and could understand that doing heroin and being spoiled is not a good way to be successful/creative.
i did chuckle quite a bit though...
arfin is obsessed with cool vs. lame which makes me think she is perpetually thirteen years old. or a hipster.for me, the most relatable period in the book was middle school/high school where arfin describes a pretty universal experience for girls who grew up in the past few decades: boys, cliques, alcohol-induced vomiting. arfin seems uncomfortably interested in this time period, unless i couldn't read her complete sarcasm yet.
her perspective throughout the book is pretty frightening if you don't understand her hipster irony which is why i probably wouldn't recommend it to a young girl which seems to be arfin's target audience unless they were very perceptive and could understand that doing heroin and being spoiled is not a good way to be successful/creative.
i did chuckle quite a bit though...
January 3, 2025
This book is fantastic look into the mind of an addict, and how you become one. I have personal experience with loved ones who have become heroin addicts and can say that I understand better than I did before the type of mindset that comes with it. I have my own vices of course and I do know what it’s like to struggle with addiction, but not to this extent.
The self-indulgent nature of this book lends to it, as it is something that anyone who has struggled with addiction can relate to. “Me me me me” this is a quote and a mindset you can easily fall into when all you care about is your next score, drink, or smoke. I cried so much reading this, because it is fucking terrible being a teenage girl, and it is so easy to dull that pain by abusing yourself, especially when being abused by others in your life.
Her diary entries were like a mirror even if I never had the exact same experiences, I could reflect on my own with the help of Leslie’s words and feel understood.
“It’s about how amazingly shitty it is to be a teenage girl and how much you hate it when you’re there and how much your heart swells when you look back on it as a grown-up.”
The self-indulgent nature of this book lends to it, as it is something that anyone who has struggled with addiction can relate to. “Me me me me” this is a quote and a mindset you can easily fall into when all you care about is your next score, drink, or smoke. I cried so much reading this, because it is fucking terrible being a teenage girl, and it is so easy to dull that pain by abusing yourself, especially when being abused by others in your life.
Her diary entries were like a mirror even if I never had the exact same experiences, I could reflect on my own with the help of Leslie’s words and feel understood.
“It’s about how amazingly shitty it is to be a teenage girl and how much you hate it when you’re there and how much your heart swells when you look back on it as a grown-up.”
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August 12, 2020I sought this out because re-reading my own diary has become too pathetic, especially when trapped in my teenage bedroom/head/hometown. This offers a pretty nice cultural time capsule, and it was very interesting to read primary documentation of an urban rich lady’s heroin addiction after finishing Cherry.
The problem is that Arfin is a total fucking asshole. She has no empathy for almost anyone, which was maybe cool and in the early aughts, but prevents any observation/narrative beyond the introspection trademark to any 15 year old’s diary. When it’s boring and tedious, it’s really boring and tedious, so she peppers in a little bit of Long Island racism to excite things. She made Betty and posts bail funds on Instagram now, so she’s grown and I’m over if, but even just a little more awareness of her sociological position would’ve been v useful in writing this...
There’s a really fun introduction by Chloe Sevigny, maybe just read that?
The problem is that Arfin is a total fucking asshole. She has no empathy for almost anyone, which was maybe cool and in the early aughts, but prevents any observation/narrative beyond the introspection trademark to any 15 year old’s diary. When it’s boring and tedious, it’s really boring and tedious, so she peppers in a little bit of Long Island racism to excite things. She made Betty and posts bail funds on Instagram now, so she’s grown and I’m over if, but even just a little more awareness of her sociological position would’ve been v useful in writing this...
There’s a really fun introduction by Chloe Sevigny, maybe just read that?
July 19, 2016
Read the full review here: http://newberyandbeyond.com/roundup-f...
The concept of this book is fantastic: Lesley inserts an old diary entry from her teen or young adult years, and then writes an update or interviews the people mentioned in it. When I think about all the ridiculous things that are probably written in my own childhood diary entries, I can’t help wondering what kind of updates I’d end up inserting.
But the main thing that happens in Lesley’s life at this point is her addiction to drugs. Yikes! It’s crazy to read about her experiences as a drug addict, and sometimes it gets pretty uncomfortable. I really do love the idea of this book, but the drugs just didn’t interest me.
The concept of this book is fantastic: Lesley inserts an old diary entry from her teen or young adult years, and then writes an update or interviews the people mentioned in it. When I think about all the ridiculous things that are probably written in my own childhood diary entries, I can’t help wondering what kind of updates I’d end up inserting.
But the main thing that happens in Lesley’s life at this point is her addiction to drugs. Yikes! It’s crazy to read about her experiences as a drug addict, and sometimes it gets pretty uncomfortable. I really do love the idea of this book, but the drugs just didn’t interest me.
June 24, 2012
I'm sorry to say this, because I thought I would like this book, but it sucked. Even though it is based on real diary entries, none of it felt very genuine or reflective in a meaningful way. There is something about rich girls whose parents pay for their college, multiple rehab stints, and apartments in Alphabet City that I will always find unappealing. Maybe if they actually had to work for something (besides sobriety), they wouldn't be so smug and self-obsessed. Like, am I supposed to care that her life was so "boring" she turned to drugs? Sounds like a luxury problem.
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