This book presents itself as a diary, written over a period of about two years, by a girl in her mid-teens. It chronicles her hopes and fears, her loves and hates, and most importantly her use of drugs - principally marijuana, acid, and speed. Set against the background of the American cultural changes of the early 1970's, the writing is occasionally poetic, but is more often a hard-edged, apparently honest revelation of a lonely life's disintegration, reconstruction, re-disintegration, and tragic end. Some years after its initial publication, it was revealed to be something of a fraud, a carefully shaped and edited composite of the lives and experiences of several individuals.

The first several entries in the diary focus on the narrator's life before she begins using drugs. She describes her struggles with her weight and self-image, her conflicts with her mother, and her desire for involvement...