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A review by alexampersand
The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch
3.0
2024 update:
I pretty much stand by what I said 7 years ago. It is fine as a supplementary book, but I'm not sure it really adds a whole lot in its entirety. The opening of the book is deeply sad within the context of the show, and once again hooked me in thinking we'd see a development of Laura, and instead we jus get little snapshots where we hear that more things have happened, without ever really bringing us into the situation.
......
Original review, 2017:
I can't help but feel disappointed with this book. It could have been so much better. I was hoping it would either function as a semi-standalone novel about Laura's plight with Bob, or that it would be an interesting and worthwhile companion to the series. Either way, I was hoping to see some interesting development, kind of like an expanded Fire Walk With Me, where we get to see how Laura's character went from the innocent little girl to the girl at the end of her tether that eventually meets her end. Unfortunately, that's not what happened.
The book opens with a 12 year old Laura, except she has already met Bob. He's already a presence in her life, even though at first she doesn't detail explicitly what happens during their visits.
There are a lot of time gaps in the book, which also doesn't help with feeling like there's no real development. Instead, we just see how she is at one moment in time, and then how she is six months later.
The lack of development continues when she becomes addicted to cocaine. Except this time, the book pretty much becomes a combination of "I want to have dirty sex" and "I love coke!!"
(Also: I don't know if this was ever covered in the show, but Laura having an orgy at 14 is... not necessarily something I wholly buy?)
One big plot-based irritation was the fact that Laura and Bob write to each other in the diary. The way the entries are laid out implies that he is possessing her mid-writing, and then writing her a message, before leaving her so that she can read what he wrote to her. And they have pages of back-and-forth messages exchanged this way. But I'm not sure whether we ever saw Bob possess Laura in this way? We know the read the diary, but that was him coming in, stealing the diary, and then replacing it. Not the kind of action that lends itself to back-and-forth messaging in the middle of a diary entry.
And one final minor irritation was the fact that in the last 30 pages or so, it feels like suddenly they wanted to just wrap up how Laura got into place for FWWM; we see her relationship with Jacoby, and the Meals on Wheels organisation, all pretty swiftly set up with no real motivation or reasoning, other than that they were a thing in the show.
The tone and writing style of the book was also not entirely pleasing. But then, I can't tell if that is down to a poor writer or whether a good writer was just accurately representing the irritating writing style of a 12 to 17 year old girl.
So all in all, this book was... fine. I guess. It wasn't overly offensive, but it added pretty much nothing to the show, it didn't explore the concept of Bob well enough to stand up on its own, and some bits felt a little too forced and fan fiction-esque.
I pretty much stand by what I said 7 years ago. It is fine as a supplementary book, but I'm not sure it really adds a whole lot in its entirety. The opening of the book is deeply sad within the context of the show, and once again hooked me in thinking we'd see a development of Laura, and instead we jus get little snapshots where we hear that more things have happened, without ever really bringing us into the situation.
......
Original review, 2017:
I can't help but feel disappointed with this book. It could have been so much better. I was hoping it would either function as a semi-standalone novel about Laura's plight with Bob, or that it would be an interesting and worthwhile companion to the series. Either way, I was hoping to see some interesting development, kind of like an expanded Fire Walk With Me, where we get to see how Laura's character went from the innocent little girl to the girl at the end of her tether that eventually meets her end. Unfortunately, that's not what happened.
The book opens with a 12 year old Laura, except she has already met Bob. He's already a presence in her life, even though at first she doesn't detail explicitly what happens during their visits.
There are a lot of time gaps in the book, which also doesn't help with feeling like there's no real development. Instead, we just see how she is at one moment in time, and then how she is six months later.
The lack of development continues when she becomes addicted to cocaine. Except this time, the book pretty much becomes a combination of "I want to have dirty sex" and "I love coke!!"
(Also: I don't know if this was ever covered in the show, but Laura having an orgy at 14 is... not necessarily something I wholly buy?)
One big plot-based irritation was the fact that Laura and Bob write to each other in the diary. The way the entries are laid out implies that he is possessing her mid-writing, and then writing her a message, before leaving her so that she can read what he wrote to her. And they have pages of back-and-forth messages exchanged this way. But I'm not sure whether we ever saw Bob possess Laura in this way? We know the read the diary, but that was him coming in, stealing the diary, and then replacing it. Not the kind of action that lends itself to back-and-forth messaging in the middle of a diary entry.
And one final minor irritation was the fact that in the last 30 pages or so, it feels like suddenly they wanted to just wrap up how Laura got into place for FWWM; we see her relationship with Jacoby, and the Meals on Wheels organisation, all pretty swiftly set up with no real motivation or reasoning, other than that they were a thing in the show.
The tone and writing style of the book was also not entirely pleasing. But then, I can't tell if that is down to a poor writer or whether a good writer was just accurately representing the irritating writing style of a 12 to 17 year old girl.
So all in all, this book was... fine. I guess. It wasn't overly offensive, but it added pretty much nothing to the show, it didn't explore the concept of Bob well enough to stand up on its own, and some bits felt a little too forced and fan fiction-esque.