Dear Diary,

When I was younger I kept many diaries. It was there that I would go to write out my frustrations and exclamations about the day. These were private "I hate it when..." or "I have a crush on..." notes that I know would never be read by others.

Unless you take one of your journals to a Girl Scout overnight at an aquarium and some, let's just say, nosy girls decide to read it (Ok. It was not the smartest idea to bring it along to the overnight, but you live, you learn.)

Now, imagine those naive, overly dramatic, pubescent entries being read by millions of people?
That is what I kept thinking when I was reading The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel. Florence Wolfson, the original diary writer, had kept a daily account for five years in a red leather diary gifted to her when she was 14.

Some entries were full of typical teenage angst, but more often than not I would forget that I was delving into the mind of a girl. Ahead of her time, the Florence from the diary would have been at home in the 21st century. She was an artist and a writer. An independent thinker who did not worry herself with judgments from her peers. I admired her for surrendering to her desires. And it didn't hurt that the New York she described kind of reminded me of what I think Paris is like. Art and sexuality rounding every corner.

What I enjoyed the most was Florence's passion. When you're young, the world is like a blank canvas, waiting to burst with the life you choose. I don't think it's a secret that I am aspiring to be one of those artistic types (lots of fine arts classes in college, but I still can't shed my obsessive need to be organized). But I always have that nagging feeling, "Yea you like to do all of this, but are you any good at it?" I was thinking about this while envy crept in, when Lily Koppel said something that stopped me, "My feelings of uncertainty about whether I had it in me to become a writer, my striving for recognition and search for love, connected me to the young woman of the diary (pg. 277)." I felt relieved. I wasn't alone in my self-doubt.

At 14, Florence was fearlessly reaching for her dreams and succeeding. I really don't think my blubbering diary entries about my mother's injustices of the day or my boy crush of the moment were sprinkled with poignant advice or enticing sexual encounters when I was 14. I think I was still into the Spice Girls, so the only thing you might have learned from reading my diary would have been awesome lyrics or French curse words (they couldn't be Spanish my mom understood those).

Read this book, it is surprising and unique. And maybe go through your old diaries, censor what you must, because you never know who will get their hands on it and make it into a best-seller.