We are so sad to be wrapping up this Dear Diary season, but happy to have our favorite complicated woman of history, Marie Antoinette, to do it with. We read Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles of The Royal Diaries series by Kathryn Lasky (published in 2000) and we have a lot to say about this teenage future queen of France. 

Join us for a Royal History for Dummies, where we hate on royalty in all its forms, fangirl over Sophia Coppola’s take on MA (and her films in general), and parse through our feelings about the way legacies of “Bad Women” are talked about. Plus, did you know that even back in 1700s France, teenage girls still had to feign interest in their boyfriend’s hobbies in order to impress them? Some things never change…

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

This episode is all about Titanic Culture, one of the most important things to hit our little 8 year old brains. Everyone was hopping on the Titanic obsession back in the late 90s, and Scholastic was no exception. Enter Voyage on the Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912 (By Ellen Emerson White). Yep, we’re finally getting into the Dear America books that were absolutely everything in our childhood. 

Discussions of topic include: Billy Zane, what it means to be consumptive, and the class dynamics of the Titanic. Plus, the universal truth of Britney Spears' “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and how it weaves its way through Young Adult Fiction. 

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

In this episode, Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl (pub. 2023) allowed us to take our own trip down memory lane back to being a teenager in 2006. In a fictionalized diary based on her teenage years, Phoebe Wahl explores embarrassing moments, first boyfriends, and know-it-all older sisters that we spend the episode connecting with and sharing our own stories of. 

Discussions of topic include: getting weird old-timey illnesses in high school, the time of skinny jeans (and thinking it was so cool when our boyfriends wore ours), and how much we miss Myspace. Plus, how the YA books we’re reading now have been inspiring us to try new things as adults.

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

We revisited The Healing Time of Hickeys by Karen Rivers (published in 2003) about 20 years after we read it the first time, which means we spotted a lot of the things that made us who we are in the pages of this book.

This weird girl lit came at us in a time we needed it the most our freshmen year of high school. Haley Andromeda went through all the same things we did — bad haircuts, terrible crushes, complex friendships — with so much humor and love. Two decades later, we still recognize the things she taught us about ourselves…and about hickeys. 

Content Warning: This book talks a bit about an inappropriate student/teacher relationship, and we have a brief discussion about it.

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

A contemporary queer YA romance novel written in letters? Set in Minneapolis, Minnesota? With lots of Prince talk? Wow, what a treat We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra (published in 2019) was for us this week.

Topics of discussion include: stinky ex-boyfriends, lots of Minneapolis talk, and poetic boners. Plus, we love a YA character who can’t help but cry! So relatable.

Content Warning: Abuse, homophobia, brief mentions of suicide, and drug use

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

This week’s book is all about learning how to stay Best Friends 4Ever from across the country, something we personally know a little about after moving so far away from each other :(. We read P.S. Longer Letter Later by Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin, published in 1998. Main characters Tara*Starr and Elizabeth’s only source of communication is snail mail as they write to each other about their problems of finding new friends, dealing with their changing families, and the complications of seventh grade.

Discussions of topic include: preteen girl rage, our AIM screen names of the past, and great book outfit descriptions featuring Doc Martens. Plus, our own experiences of the hell that was middle school. We loved looking back on this piece of nostalgic “juvenile” fiction so much!

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

This week, we have a much more nuanced, empathetic take on teens, drugs, and addiction than our last entry in the YA Diary genre. We read Things I’ll Never Say by Cassandra Newbould, published in 2023. It's a beautiful story about grief, love, and what comes next in life.

Other topics of interest include sword-crossing erotica, the booze-soaked fruit drinks of our youth, and Vanilla Ice’s Ninja Rap.

Unlike Go Ask Alice, Nixon never would’ve given this book his seal of approval…so you know it’s a good one.

Content Warning: Drug Use, death by drug overdose, loss, and weight talk

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Theme Music by Slip.stream - "In And Out Of Love" 

We’re starting this season off with a novel that was near and dear to a naive twelve-year-old Kaycee’s heart. Go Ask Alice, a book that boasted being a REAL diary from a REAL fifteen-year-old girl was published in 1971, and the journey this book took through history is quite a tale.

In this episode, we air out our frustrations on Go Ask Alice as we talk Beatrice Sparks (the so-called editor and finder of the diary), her extended universe of found diaries, and how the War on Drugs and Nixon’s 70’s America ties into it all. 

Content warning: Weight talk, sexual assault, drug use, violence, graphic imagery

**Correction: Kaycee wrongly states the title of this book came from a Beatles song, but it’s actually Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”.**

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In 2002 a drug called ecstasy and a little Canadian teen drama by the name of Degrassi: The Next Generation combined to make one of the best television episodes of our young lives

Degrassi proves a lot can happen in 23 minutes, and we discuss it all at length. Plus, we talk favorite and least favorite characters, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The D.A.R.E. program promising free drugs to kids, and the logistics of certain urban legends. 

Join us back in Ashley’s suburban split-level basement bedroom for some Degrassi the Next Generation

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