Lucy in the Sky by Anonymous

From Goodreads:

"A riveting first-person tale of addiction, in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal.

The author of this diary began journaling on her sixteenth birthday. She lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Santa Monica with her mom, dad, and Berkeley-bound older brother. She was a good girl, living a good life...but one party changed everything. One party, where she took one taste—and liked it. Really liked it.
Social drinking and drugging lead to more, faster, harder... She convinced herself that she was no different from anyone else who liked to party. But the evidence indicates otherwise: Soon she was she hanging out with an edgy crowd, blowing off school and everything she used to care about, all to find her next high.
But what goes up must come down, and everything—from her first swig, to her last breath—is chronicled in the diary she left behind."

Goodreads - Lucy in the Sky

I read the book Go Ask Alice at the beginning of the year and had a lot of mixed feelings about it.  It took place in the late 60s and early 70s.  I didn't connect with the book because I didn't grow up in the 60s and 70s and there were references I didn't understand.  After finishing the book I passed it on to a friend for her to read.  I knew that there were other books written in the same format by Anonymous and I was unsure if I wanted to read another one.  I was well aware that the book would be in the same diary format and that the conclusion would probably have a coroner's report or a news report.  I enjoyed the book Lucy in the Sky a little more than I enjoyed Go Ask Alice, however it is hard to enjoy either considering the content of the books.

The book Lucy in the Sky follows a girl, who is nameless by the way, as she embarks into her 16th year of life.  She starts a journal and decides to keep it as up to date as possible.  She falls in love with any boy who will show her attention.  She meets Ross who she thinks likes her and decides to take a hit off of a joint in hopes that he will like her more.  "Lucy" ends up making friends with the wrong people and she falls into more trouble than she ever expected.  Throughout the book she drinks cosmos constantly, smokes weed incessantly, and then gets into severe drug use by using and abusing cocaine, LSD, meth, and heroin.  Throughout her entire drug usage her brother is aware of her abusing, but continues to hide it from his parents until one night she got a DUI and he spilled all the beans.  She started to clean herself up and then decided to try meth.  The night she tried meth she also apparently tried heroin.  The dosage was too much and they had to call an ambulance.  She died while they were taking her to the hospital, but the medics were able to bring her back.  Her parents promptly checked her into a rehab facility where she pulled her life together, met Amy who became her AA sponsor, and she gets clean.  While the reader thinks that our drug addict is clean and has pulled her act together, we find the ending is a news report that is reporting the death of a 16 year old girl who died of an accidental meth and heroin overdose.

I have a few issues with this book.  First off is the fact of this being a "diary".  The book is listed as being written by Anonymous.  There was a lot of debate over Go Ask Alice because it was claimed to be based on a diary by a true addict in the 70s.  Psychologist Beatrice Sparks ended up stating that the book was based off of a diary that a patient of hers wrote.  She basically fluffed it and published it.  The fact that people had to question if that was true made me question if any other books by "Anonymous" are true or at least based on true facts.  All of the books that have the same diary format are published as fiction.  It would just be good to know if this is based on someone's diary or if this is purely out of the mind of someone who thought they should do an updated remake of Go Ask Alice.  The back cover of the book makes it seem as if the book is based off of a girl's diary.  The back cover states, "Read her story in her own words, in the diary she left behind."  I just feel that if it were my child that had gone through this and ended up overdosing, I wouldn't really want to publish her diaries that shared every little drink she had and every drug she tried.  I feel that that is personal and I wouldn't want to share it with the world.  That being said, I'm still upset that the book cover portrays this as being the work of an actual drug addict, while the copyright page in the book states it is a work of fiction.

My next issue with this book is the fact that it is written in diary style by a 16 year old girl.  She writes OMG a bajillion times like IT. IS. OVERKILL!  The style was so annoying that I really wanted to slap the main character because she sounded so immature.  But at the same time someone did a really good job at making the character seem like an immature 16 year old.  I know that at probably 14 or 15 I wrote annoyingly like the main character.  I was naive and was just a kid, exactly like the main character was.  She was just extremely annoying with her usage of capital letters and punctuation in the middle of a sentence.  I just feel that if this girl really did become an addict who was trying to fit in, that she would have at least tried to seem mature in her writing and in her life, but this wasn't the case.  It was really hard to like "Lucy".

"Lucy" has an older brother named Cam who does drink and smokes weed periodically.  He is the typical older brother who is looking out for his younger sister.  He comes to her rescue  and covers for her more than once.  I was so baffled that her brother loved her as much as he did, but he didn't love her enough to tell their parents.  I kept waiting for him to tell his parents because he loved "Lucy" and didn't want to see her overdose, but he doesn't tell until she gets a DUI and he feels that he has to tell.  Of course his parents are disappointed in him and everyone cries, but I was disappointed in the character Cam.  He was kind of making it a double standard that he was allowed to drink and smoke pot, but he didn't want "Lucy" doing it.  If you tell your sister she shouldn't, then you probably shouldn't be doing it either.  I felt that there was a lot of potential for Cam to do the right thing for someone he loved, but the author apparently didn't think he should do the right thing until she was really hooked on drugs and in some serious trouble.  I wanted there to be one knight in shining armor that would help rescue "Lucy" from her downward spiral.  I felt like Cam wanted to be that cool older brother that kept secrets, but he also struggled with doing the right thing.  I would love to read a "diary" from Cam's side of things.  I would love to know if there was something that was pulling his focus that allowed him to keep his sister's drug problem a secret.

The biggest issue I had was "Lucy" glamorizing drug use.  She was so excited every time she tried a new drug and she wrote about how it felt.  She made using drugs seem like the best choice she ever made in life.  I understand that this is from the viewpoint of "Lucy" and this is her diary and she was just writing what she felt. I just feel that if a junior high or high school student were to read this that they would think it was totally okay to do drugs because it will take you on the trip of a lifetime and you will feel AMAZING.  Whoever really wrote and published this should be ashamed of themselves for making drugs sound so appealing.  I think it was great that they admitted our main character into rehab at the end of the book, but it doesn't correct the problem.  It would have been a better ending if "Lucy" hadn't overdosed.  I feel that the ending would have sent a better message if the rehab helped heal "Lucy" of her drug abuse issues.  But instead this book just showed everyone that drugs are fantastic and that even rehab can't save you.

This book was very similar to Go Ask Alice and that was kind of a let down.  I did however enjoy this book taking place in modern age where people have cell phones.  I give the book 2 stars out of 5 because it glamorized drug use and was written in such an immature tone.  I would only recommend this book to mature adults who are able to handle the content in the book.  I have four other books that are written in the same diary format.  I'm somewhat excited to read those because they have different focal points than Lucy in the Sky and Go Ask Alice.