The Diary Of A Teenage Girl is in my top five favorite books of all time . Before I even begin, I would like to say that this read is painful. These pages are riddled with sadness and distress, confusion and recklessness, and an overall naivety so easily mistaken as maturity. Minnie Getz is a complex human being whose curiosities and experiences are reflected somewhere within the eyes of every young girl, and every grown woman who have grown from it. Though her experiences are strange and straining to read, I feel her in my own heart so greatly that I was unable to put the book down for even a moment.
The writer of the novel’s name is Phoebe Glockener. The novel is composed of her actual diary and memories and interpretations she wrote along with them as an adult. I think she changes her own name in the book and the names of the characters for safety purposes, though she remains quite silent about her reasoning. It’s actually halfway a graphic novel; Minnie is an aspiring cartoonist who enjoys drawing disturbing images in her diary that depict situations she is going through, either literal or metaphorical.
Minnie’s diary comes to life when she is fifteen years old. She explains that she has to write it all down because her life has “become very interesting as of late.” This roller coaster of a read begins by revealing that Minnie has lost her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend. What a way to begin a novel, right? Monroe is the name of this thirty five year old man. Minnie finds herself falling into a twisting world of secrets while surrounded by her alcoholic and drug ridden mother, a best friend with no depth or personality other than her beauty, a jealous stepfather who holds himself to be a better man than any other (though towards the end of the book it is revealed he has slept with Minnie’s cousin who is her age, making him no better of a man than Monroe), and rich kids she is surrounded by at a private school in San Francisco that Pascal (her step father) insists she and her sister attend.
Set in the seventies, the book follows memories recorded by Minnie’s own hand of addiction, adventure, perverseness, and the depths the mind a fifteen year old girl can travel to. This book is dedicated to “All the girls when they have grown.” And I recommend them to bury their hearts into the secret life of Minnie Getz.
I’ve never read the book, but I’ve seen the movie at least a million times. One of my faves!