Happy that I finally finished this book. It took me quite a while. I didn't really like the writing too much and wasn't invested in the characters for most of the book. This was the first Stephen King I read but I hope that one day I will find one that I actually do like.

It was a little slow in my opinion which I usually don't like in books. In 3/4 of the book you are just getting to know the characters without too much focus on the murders are currently going on. However, in the end I did like getting to know the characters back story in that detail. The last part of the book was also quite gripping and you got too read a little about the characters after the main case was solved too.

Another thing that bothered me however was the size of the physical book I was reading. Way to big to carry around! Hence without the quarantine it would have taken me longer to finish the book, haha. But that has nothing to do with the story, could be different for other editions and is only a personal preference :)

Overall, would recommend!

Generally, I think books that show kids what drugs can do by real life examples is a great way to educate them. However, this is not a real diary even though it claims to be real even in the book. The plot just feels very weird and just not real. I found there to be some homophobic sentences in this book as well as some triggering events which were not properly discussed (in my opinion). However, I did find out that this book was apparently written in 1970, so that explains a lot.

I was about to give this book two stars because I thought it could still give some educational value to some people but the epilogue killed it for me. This is just out of the blue and sounds weird because it is referring to the fact that keeping a diary is apparently necessary to stay alive.

I think reading this book specifically in school nowadays would not provide the educational value you would like to get out of a diary-style book about drug (ab-)use. Hence, I can only give this book one star.