Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager (Mass Market Paperback)

by Anonymous (Author), Beatrice Sparks (Editor) "I can't believe I woke up this morning and it was an ordinary day: Take a shower, brush my teeth, clean my room, slap a..." (more)
Key Phrases: crisis line, L'il Annie, Mary Ann, Baby Annie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Sparks (It Happened to Nancy) shares another slice of a troubled teen's life, this time focusing readers' attention on the topic of teen sex and pregnancy. The first, most excruciating entries in 14-year-old Annie's diary trace her victimization and impregnation by a manipulative and sadistic boyfriend. Completely obsessed with 16-year-old Danny ("He called me an 'Earth Angel.' And I think I'm going to commit myself completely to being just that for him, no matter what!"), Annie is less prepared than readers for the devastating fall she takes the day her home pregnancy test comes out pink. The remaining, more solution-oriented segments of the book convey Annie's arduous climb from rock-bottom ("I CANNOT BEAR TO FACE IT! I WILL NOT!") to a state in which she can confront her mistakes and plan for herself and her child. With the support of her exceptionally tolerant mother, patient teachers and a nonjudgmental therapist (supposedly Sparks), Annie changes from a self-deprecating romantic ("Could plain me possibly be good enough for awesome him?") to a more level-headed realist, who learns, painfully, to put her baby's needs before her own. The book carries a strong anti-abortion sentiment and has an aura of soap opera as well. However, it provides a plethora of objective and valuable information about sex, pregnancy and birth control, and even includes a "What Is Love?" quiz to help girls assess their relationships. An appendix lists relevant statistics, crisis and information hotline numbers, and other useful resources. Tackling issues young adolescents are often reluctant to discuss with adults, this volume will likely find a place on the reference shelf. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-A book that's sure to be as popular as Go Ask Alice (S & S, 1971), which was also edited by Sparks. Annie, 14, falls head over heels for handsome, wealthy 16-year-old Danny when he befriends her. She lies to her mother to go out with him and he takes her to drinking parties in his red convertible. Annie is soon totally dependent on him despite his frequent bad moods and erratic behavior. When he rapes her, he tells her that she led him on and made him lose control. She continues to love him even as he abuses her both physically and emotionally. Annie is heartbreaking in her trust and hope that Danny will turn back into the sweet, gentle boy she fell in love with only a few months earlier, and she becomes desperate when her period fails to come on schedule. Finally, she has to tell her mother and figure out what to do. The diary format is a surefire draw for teens and preteens. This book has the same errors in grammar and flow problems as Alice, but they lend realism to the narrative. Not as graphic as the earlier title, Annie's Baby displays a 14 year old's naivet? about sexuality and bodily functions. Buy multiple copies and prepare for the onslaught of requests.
Susan R. Farber, Ardsley Public Library, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen; 1 edition (December 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380791412
• ISBN-13: 978-0380791415
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (149 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #44,953 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A completely moving book, December 18, 1999

By A Customer

In this book Annie, a naive 14 year old, describes her painful realationship with her boyfriend, her unexpected pregnancy, and the birth of her child. Annie pours the truth into her diary. Although I am not(and have never been)as naive as Annie is, this book opened my eyes to the facts about abusive relationships. Annie struggles over the fact that premarital sex is against her values. She loves Danny though and keeps coming back to him, even though he raped her, even though he beats her.

When Annie discovers she is pregnant, it makes her situation go from bad to worse. Unable to face the fact for months, Annie does everything posible to keep from seeing her boyfriend. When she gets up the guts to tell her boyfriend, she is faced with the horrible truth:he never loved her at all. Annie's mother supports her dission to have her baby. But when Lil'Annie is born, Annie discovers how hard a baby is. She asks her self this question:Can she really raise her baby? This is an exellent book, every girl age 10 and up should read it!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rot., November 12, 2005

By	Ana (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager (School & Library Binding)

Annie's Baby is, to put it simply, a waste of paper. To begin, I don't believe for an instant that it is THE ACTUAL DIARY of a 14-year-old girl. I myself am a 14-year-old girl, and I have honestly never met a girl my age as immature and ridiculous as "Annie". Words like "kadoodle", "dizzy-fizzy", "billion-zillion-kat-tillion" show either the mental capacity of a six-year-old or an absurd attempt to make the writing sound younger. Annie repeats herself constantly and speaks almost entirely in youth-group cliches.
"Hey, wait.. either he'll like me FOR ME or not at all!!! Right?!"
"Can PLAIN ME possibly be good enough for AWESOME, RADDER-THAN RAD HIM?!"
"I'm going to dedicate my life to helping HIM be the BEST HIM he CAN BE!!!"
and my favourite,
"Did he REALLY MEAN IT when he said 'EVERYONE IS DOING IT'?"
To make it even more unbelievable, she speaks to her diary quite literally as if it were another person -- to the point of having arguments and TANTRUMS with it.
"Annie": "Danny's right; I'm just being a little girl, booby baby boob tube."
"Daisy Diary": "I don't think so."
"Annie": "HA...you CAN'T THINK!! you're just paper."
"Daisy Diary": "AM I? Or am I your conscience?"
Asserting her independance comes down to capslocking at her diary that SHE DOESN'T NEED ITS ADVICE ANYMORE. It is understandable that Ms. Sparks thought using and overusing capital letters, italics and multiple exclamation marks would make this sound authentic, but she does it all wrong. Try reading some of these sentences aloud; they don't line up. No one would speak this way, and no one would write it either. Teenage girls deserve more credit than "Annie" gets for knowing their minds and understanding people and motives and consequences of actions. Even when she lies to her mother, she feels excruciatingly guilty in a way that, honestly, no one feels after the age of eight. Even after it becomes clear to the reader that Danny is gutterscum -- within approximately ten seconds of the introduction of his character -- she continues to insist that he is a beautiful sensitive soul and couldn't possibly have meant to hurt her or use her.
Also! Read the Note from Ms. Sparks at the beginning of the book. Notice how she has patronisingly written in the EXACT tone her protagonist uses throughout the book? So are the supposed-to-be informative Q&A at the end. Hmm.
The writing style of this book was so ridiculous in itself that I hardly reached the point of analysing her actions. Annoying though "Annie" undeniably is, she cannot be faulted for some of the things she does. Many girls do stay in abusive relationships, although it's much more common for to deny the situation altogether than to talk every action to death, and then decide it happened a different way. Many girls are raped or hurt by boyfriends and keep it quiet out of shame or "love" for them.. and so forth. I just think this was a wasted opportunity to bring some of these issues to light in a fresh, not-preachy way.

-- Ana.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Aaaarrrghh, August 6, 2005

By	Madisen (Fruita, CO United States) - See all my reviews

I started reading this book because of the concept. I thought it would be an interesting look into the struggles of teen pregnancy. Unfortuneately, I never even got to that part. Annie's personality is just so annoying that I wanted to scream. For one, she is constantly caught up in a whirlwind of confusion, teen angst, and puppy-dog-ish eagerness, so much so that you want to tell her to take a tranquilizer and calm down. She repeats the sentence "I HAVE to help him be the BEST he can BE!!!" at least three times when writing about her boyfriend, even though it's as plain as daylight to readers that he is a jerk. Plus, she is always arguing with "the diary" (a.k.a. herself), having entire conversations with it...ugh.

The decisions she makes are even more baffling than her bizarre thought process. After being brutally raped by aforementioned boyfriend, does she call the police? Tell an adult? No. Instead, she runs home, and when her mom questions her messed up appearance, she replies (and I quote): "Well, I was jogging, and a car hit me, but please don't call the police, because I wasn't on the sidewalk, and I was kind of running towards it!!!" WTF!?!? Even more crazily, she then says that she's going to stay with her boyfriend, because the rape just proves that he needs someone to help him be the "BEST he can BE!!!" At this point, I tossed the book down in disgust. Next time I want to read about the struggles of teens, I will choose a book with a more sane and mature narrator.