The novel is said to be "As seen by Jennifer Lynch," and is written in a matter-of-fact tone[2] from the point of view of Laura Palmer, a small-town teenager —a "good girl gone bad"[3]— who is abused and terrorized by the demonic entity BOB.

[7] It recounts standard teenage concerns of her first period, her first kiss, and her relationship with her parents, alongside experiences of sexual abuse, promiscuity, cocaine addiction, and her obsession with death.

[8] In her third diary entry dated 23 July 1984, Laura originally states that she had her first nightmare foreshadowing BOB and his crimes in 1983, at the age of 10 or 11.

In a 10 December 1986 entry, she desperately tries to dispel the notion nagging at her that her sinful "thoughts" are BOB's machinations and tries to claim her desires as her own to take responsibility for them.

She notes that, on 10 January 1987, she has a disturbing vision or "dream" in which her father Leland angrily questions her about her recent visits to the local brothel, One-Eyed Jack's.

On 12 November 1987, her lovers and drug dealers Leo Johnson and Bobby Briggs find her lying in her pony's stall, too drunk and high to walk.

According to that night's entry, the trio spends the rest of the night ("just like Bonnie and Clyde", as Bobby puts it) to drive out with Leo's truck to Low Town a few miles out of Twin Peaks to steal a kilo of cocaine from the local drug syndicate, an undertaking which before long ends in a gang shootout before they arrive home with their new supply.

Later, she starts working two jobs for local hotelier Benjamin Horne—babysitting his mentally handicapped son Johnnie and apprenticing in Horne's boutique.

"[3] On June 10, 2011, Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost announced that a new edition of the diary would be published in the fall of 2011, featuring a new foreword by himself and David Lynch.