Customer Reviews

Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I read this book becuase it looked good and I saw alot of good reviews on amazon, but it was a huge dissapointment. Its not realistic at all. She is constantly saing she is a negative thinker and going off to the park and crying with her friends or mother and just making all of these connections that a real teenager never would. Theres too many CAPITALS and exclimation marks!!! with everything she said its almost mocking, that teenagers are total idiots. Its distracting from the story, that in reality isnt that good. Its hard to explain, but i was not suprised this was written by a psychiatrist. this person obviously was just trying to tell teenagers not to have relationships with teachers, and not writing a good book. Its a dissapointment. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY. This person needs to stop writing books, they are horrible.

There are two things Beatrice Sparks is good at (sorry to disappoint you, kids, there's no "anonymous teenager" handing their diaries over to her for editing) - creating victims and preaching. Even while dealing with issue of teenage pregnancy, she chose to have the character be raped so that she was absolved from responsibility. This book is no exception. As for the preaching - the character constantly berates herself for not being positive enough, and reminding herself what she's grateful for, usually accompanied by capital letters and excessive exclamation marks. The narrator is too-good-to-be-true and her style too juvenile for her age, but if you enjoyed other works by Dr Sparks, pick it up - it's almost identical to everything else she's written.

This book was ok... After reading a few pages I had to assume that this was not a realy diary. It is tto preachy (like how she is always scolding herself for being sad or mad at someone, just not something a real teenage girl would do). Also after a while I started to hope either something interesting and realistic would happen or the book would just be over. The ending is too perfect and abrupt for an "actual" girl's account of her affair with her teacher. I have read quite a few diary books and this one is not one of the better and more believable ones. It made me kind of depressed for this girl who is being used and I am not sure whether or not it was a waste of time to read it. Either way, teenage girls might want to read it so they can see the signs of a teacher who wants more that just good grades from you.

This book carries an important message but honestly, I can't stand the way it has been edited. It's marketed as a real diary but thats impossible to believe. It's not a 14 year old's diary at all which is pretty distracting. That alone ruined the book, if its not a true story it shouldn't claim to be one.

This book it is in diary form and the main character is Jennie. Jennie's life is very complex and when she finds someone to make it go all away it turns out to not be what she expects. Jennie falls in love with her math teacher and loves everything that he does and it just so happens he does everything to make her fall in love with him. He traps girls to trust him and then fall in love with him. When Jennie finds out who he really is she does nothing but stay in bed.

I thought this book was very good to relate with a true-life teenager. It shows some of the problems they have and how one problem can wreck their lives forever. This book was very emotional and easy to relate to. Also, it has characters you can understand and know so much about them you think you've known them forever.

Brought to you from the author of Go Ask Alice... yeah, right.

This is probably not the first great hoax in publishing history, but I'm sure it's one of the most successful.

In spite of the fact that the actual source of this book has long been revealed and known, the publishing company continues to brazenly assert that this is a genuine document. It's as ridiculous as the continuing insistence that The Amityville Horror is a true story, too.

It should take any literate adult no more than one and one half pages to determine that this is neither the language nor the syntax of an adolescent/young adult.

It is a known fact that this shameless propoganda was the work of Beatrice Sparks, a Mormom activist who created an entire series of these books, in which children are destroyed by the evils of homosexuality, premarital sex, drug abuse, satanism, etc.

Without diminishing what positive impact this book, or any of the others, may have had on impressionable youth, and without condemning its good intentions (is anyone in favor of having AIDS?), these books are complete rubbish.

Like Mr. Frey, the intentions are not the point.

The point is that these books are being published as nonfiction.

And they are lies.

Two stars is a generous rating for such a horribly-written book, but I have to admit that it did finally start to get more interesting the closer it got to the end (marginally better than Dr. Sparks's usual), and it did contain some good resources in the back of the book, for readers who might be facing the same sort of issues that Jennie does.

I was already well aware of the fact that Dr. Sparks is the real author of these "troubled teen diaries," but at least in some of her other books, it's not so obvious right from the very start. This book was only marginally better than the horrific 'Annie's Baby,' and that's only because it finally starting getting relatively interesting and dramatic towards the end (in spite of a too-perfect conclusion). Until the last 20 pages or so, it was pretty difficult to slog through. It has the exact same writing style as all of her other books--a protagonist who thinks, writes, talks, acts absolutely nothing like a modern American teen, the maturity level of a five year old, characters who are clichés and stereotypes from some over the top morality play or after school special, ridiculous childish language, obnoxious moral preachiness, apologizing for cursing, thinking negative or unappreciative thoughts, or criticising one's parents in one's *own journal,* and of course, Dr. Sparks's specialty, frequently WRITING IN ALL CAPS, OFTEN FOR SEVERAL LINES IN A ROW, excessive italics, and excessive exclamation points!!!!! It's so difficult to read something like that; not only is is annoying and childish, but it also really distracts from the story.

Jennie's parents have a weird relationship; one moment they're fighting a lot, the next they're trying to reconcile and work things out, and then her dad finally leaves. Her mom turns to pills to deal with the pain, and Jennie clings to her two best friends, Bridget and Marcie. (Marcie btw started out as a snob she and Bridget hated, till the oh-so-unrealistic scene when Marcie asks to eat lunch with them and immediately admits she only acts snobby and like she doesn't want or need friends because she's afraid no one would want her as a friend otherwise.) Jennie is upset that Bridget gets a boyfriend, Brad, and starts hanging out with him instead of her all of the time. Brad eventually dumps Bridget, and the three girls, in a typically unbelievable and ridiculous section of the book, start doing weed (wearing only underwear and shower caps, for fear they might smell of drugs) until they're caught by Marcie's father the general. Dr. Sparks really managed to pack a lot of her pet crusades into this book--drugs, religion, teen relationships, broken homes, alcoholism, the works! She even snuck in a ridiculous anti-feminist comment early on, when Jennie comments on a teacher who wants to go by Ms. instead of Miss, and how all of the kids "wonder if she's a...you know." Since when do modern American teens consider it suspicious or wrong for a teacher (or any woman) to go by Ms.? This isn't the Fifties, Dr. Sparks, when only select few women didn't go by either Miss or Mrs. Husband's Full Name!

Jennie feels close to her new sub in math, Mr. Johnstone, really quickly, and sees nothing creepy or inappropriate by how he singles her out for increasing amounts of attention. She almost immediately is declaring he's perfect and that they have something special together (another feature typical of the teen girls in Dr. Sparks's world). It's never said exactly how old he is, but I'd assume he's at least 10 years older than Jennie. Jennie lets him get weirder and weirder, even to the point where he's taking pedophilic pictures of her looking like a little girl and asking her to marry him on her 15th birthday. She only comes back to her senses when she discovers, by accident, what's really been going on. Seriously, I really don't think any real teen girl would be that dumb, not even one from a dysfunctional family like Jennie's. Of course, everything starts to get back to normal when Jennie finally confides in her dear sweet Mommy, who she's so glad is her precious Mom (yet another stock line in Dr. Sparks's books!), and they both start praying and going to church. (Dr. Sparks really let a clue of her authorship slip when she had Jennie say she feels like she's been kicked out of the celestial circle, a term she's heard but doesn't know the meaning of. Unless Jennie's supposed to be a Mormon or lives in Salt Lake City like the good shrink, what are the odds she would have actually heard that term anywhere?!)

Jennie is by far one of Dr. Sparks's most annoying, childish, ridiculous, and loathsome creations. I really wanted to slap her for being so stupid, overly emotional, and juvenile. Not only does Dr. Sparks need a memo on how modern teens really write, talk, act, and think, but she also needs a memo on how you can impart important lessons like don't do drugs, be wary of excessive and increasingly intimate attention from a teacher, don't have unprotected sex, etc., without lying to and preaching at young people to try to scare them straight. I agree with the reviewer who said the only things she's really good at are creating victims and preaching.

I know this book is written as a diary, but I do believe that it could have been written much better. It doesn't seem like a fourteen year old girl, maybe an eleven year old, but not fourteen. The main character seems really fake and plastic in the beginning especially.

The story itself, however, makes up for it. It's a story of how obsession can go too far, and the long winding road of love and betrayal and heartbreak. I like it, but wish it was written better.

I read this book and although I did really enjoy it, I thought some parts seemed a little unrealistic (maybe not something a real teenage girl would write).I would however highly recommend this book to younger teen and preteen girls, because this book may allow you to futher understand when an adult is taking advantage of you, and this stuff does happen even with people you trust.This book (diary) may not be as good as some of the other stuff Beatrice Sparks has put out, but it still sends out a strong message to teenage girls.

I thought that Trecherous Love was a good book. It's a good book for any teenage girl, and tells that you can't always trust whom you want to trust. The main characters are Jennie, Bridget, and Mr. Jonstone. What happened to Jennie can happen to anyone. Mr. Jonstone was her substitute teacher and she fell in love with him, because he made her feel like no one else could make her feel. She felt as if she couldn't trust anyone but Mr. Jonstone, because he was the only one that understood her. Her best friend, Bridget, left her for her boyfriend. I think that this book is great for anyone who likes to read about real live situations that have happened to other people.