Summary

In “The Second Notebook,” when the narrator turned 10, she received a diary. The diary’s lock made her realize she “was permitted to have secrets” (59). She had had “nasty, malicious thoughts” for years, but now she “could record and confine them” (59). Yet the diary “was a trap” (59). Women were expected to record their thoughts, but were given limited space to do so. Because she read Veronica’s diary, the narrator feared someone reading hers and recorded only banal details from her life. The real truth was in what she omitted (61).

In her notebooks, she felt no “need to censor” herself (61). She wanted to be honest.

The next two pages were missing from the notebooks.

Because Veronica’s suicide was unprecedented, the narrator hunted the past for evidence of her distress. When the narrator and her father visited Veronica in...