Go Ask Alice

Rating:
Summary: The reality about teenagers on drugs
Review: I think "Go ask Alice" is a good book, because it teaches us about things we shouldn't do. The vocabulary is very easy so you can understand and learn so much from the story. This book lets us see the girl's problems and her solutions. I'm really sure that you will be more mature after ready this story because it's like your own experience, because you understand the girl so well. I recomended this book because if you have the same problems or anything like that, you would know what do you have to do.

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Summary: Just silly
Review: Look, I know I shouldn't be saying this because this book is the IMPORTANT BOOK to keep children off of drugs, but it's pure drug hysteria. It's one of those books that you read before you even know anyone who drinks beer and it scares you. Later on, you take drugs anyhow especially when you realize that your potsmoking cousin has yet to shoot up with heroin. By making a huge issue out of drugs, it undercuts it's message and renders it useless. False notes include:

"Alice" being tricked into taking acid: Acid's expensive. Acid's also easy to freak out on, and if you are with someone whose tripping that isn't liking the experience, it's going to ruin your evening. Usually when people take acid for the first time, their friends make sure that they are not going to go paranoid.

Dealing to school children: Why would 10 year olds want the stuff? They've all been indoctrinated in the "Drugs kill little kids" paranoia. If you were dealing to elementary kids, you'd be lucky to get out of the playground alive.

Being raped by heroin addicts: Heroin kills all sexual urges. Nothing more to say there.

Shooting up after being on acid for awhile: People don't go comparison shopping for drugs. People tend to settle on what they like. I was a pothead in college. My friends were drunks. We usually didn't mix and match and I only know a few people who even tried smack or cocaine.

Being tricked back into Acid: This had to be the most ridiculous scene in the book. Alice is babysitting. She eats the candy in the dish. It's Acid. She goes nuts. Huh? Did her friends break in when she wasn't looking? Did the nice young couple that hired her do it as part of the DRUG CONSPIRACY! Is this the magical Acid that doesn't fall apart at room temperature. Besides that why would a drug addict want to actively recruit other addicts. Drugs aren't plentiful. If someone wants to stop using, you let them. It leaves more for you.

It would have been so much more realistic if "Alice" had tried to hang out with her old friends and realized that they had nothing in common and that made her want to go back on drugs if only to have something to talk about with them. The evil drug addicts who try to get their lost sheep back into the fold is the stuff of Moonies, Scientologists and Christians - not drug fiends.

I could go on but I won't. All in all, this is a silly melodrama, with a lot of drug myths strung together in order put fear into the hearts of teenagers. If you want to read a REAL diary about drug addiction - read THE BASKETBALL DIARIES by Jim Carroll. It's urbane, realistic, funny and blisteringly evil. It shows the pure horror of drug addiction from the perspective of a punk kid who doesn't realize how horrible life is getting for him until it's too late. He's not a whiner like "Alice" and he's not making excuses for himself and there's no "He died of a heroin overdose isn't that sad" shock ending. The movie is Disney-melodrama, but the book is pure brilliance.

For other books about drug addiction try Please Kill Me: The Oral History of Punk, Trainspotting or even Naked Lunch.

If you want to know what drug addiction is really about then don't read the literary equivalent of Reefer Madness.

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Summary: Your Not the Only One Dealing with Lifes Hard Moments.
Review: Do you ever have days when you think life can't get any better and then all the sudden it goes down hill from there? Don't think you the only one out there, a young girl by the name of Alice can relate. She's growing up in a rocky house hold with no one to talk to but her diary. She's experiencing things she's never been interested in and finding herself in some trouble. This is a great book to read to realize your not the only one out there dealing hard everyday problems. I just hope that after you read this book you decide to deal with these problems in a much smarter way than Alice.

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Summary: After you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs...
Review: Go Ask Alice is a collection of diary entries that the subject of the journal: Alice (name hidden) writes about her life during her experience with drugs. This book was actually given as a class reading project at my school so we could understand the effects leading from drug abuse. And it is a book that surely does make you understand how such a good life can be tormented with one deathly curiosity to drugs.
The part that hurt me the most was that in this book Alice is actually tricked into taking some acid and her journal entries explain and go through a maze of self destruction and a frantic search of a way to stay away from the drugs.
Even though the world you seem to be in, the life you seem to live as you read these words seem calm and silent it's amazing to be able to read Go Ask Alice and see how the harsh reality of the world really can be like.

I also suggest you remember to read the epilogue at the end which put tears in my eyes. For in 184 pages of pure honesty I found that I'd grown very close to Alice and her life.

Rating:
Summary: Not just a story of drugs but of life too.
Review: It was an amazing adventure into the world of a teenager. I was able to relate to so much. You start to feel like you know her. I couldn't put the book down I bought it went to my room and read until I finished the book. It showed the true side of drugs, the good and that bad. Hearing both is what makes it so real. The book is over a time of about a year and half but you feel like it has been so much longer. A lot of crazy stuff goes on but the fact is that its true and happens to many. I think its one everyone should read. It should be required reading in highschool! And this is all coming from someone who hates to read, first book I have finished in a year. It was an amazing true story. It hit me and hit me hard.

Rating:
Summary: The Real Truth!
Review: This book is great for many teens wether they are on drugs or not. It is a diary of a not-so-popular girl who gets addicted to drugs. It really touched me when I read this book. I felt like I was Alice, going through everything she did. It is a based on a true story and is beautifully written.

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Summary: Frightening and fake...
Review: I'm in my mid-20s and I remember this as one of those books that got passed around junior high classrooms along with whispers and fear. In 8th grade we were forced to read excerpts of it out loud in class. Years later a friend of mine who is a librarian let us on to the secret...it's well known among most school librarians (and others in the book publishing world) that the author of Go Ask Alice was a middle-aged woman who peppered the text with what she *thought* would be teenage phrases and situations...Alice is *not* a real person.

Hence, the writing is forced, the situations highly implausible, and the ending *way* too frightening for the younger readers it is often forced upon. There are much better ways to educate young people about drug use and abuse than by scaring the living heck out of them with scenes that often romanticize and even glamorize certain drugs. This novel was read by tons of young people I know and every single one of them experimented with drugs at some later date.

This is not a responsible book and it should not be read in schools.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: As a library aide at school, I have to restock books and and other items in the room frequently. Today when I was reshelving, I happened to see Go Ask Alice. I wasn't really interested at first, but the book just looked kind of different...so I decided to read the back. I have some friends that do drugs, and they seem to be so oblivious to the dangers and longterm results--they think they are invincible I guess. They aren't doing anything as bad as Alice all put together, but I wanted to know what it was really all about. I'll tell you what, after devouring this book all in one night, I have no desire whatsoever to be tempted into using. Every event that Alice goes through leads to a progressively worse situation. You really do identify with poor Alice, and each time she starts making her mistakes over again it's hard to avoid cringing and begging her to stop. Alice's story was real....just as real as all of our everyday lives. She writes it with the honesty and captivating sincerity of a lost soul--a soul that wants to be anywhere but where it is. Some of the thoughts she thinks are disgusting and unforgivable when she's using, but others are amazing and so noble when she's not. Alice represents the potential junky in any of us.....in all of us if we don't learn from her poignant story. It taught me a lot that I hope I remember in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Experiencing the Real World
Review: Go Ask Alice is a book written by a teenage girl. It tells you how she starts to use drugs, and how they ruin her life. Alice is just like any other high school girl; she has a family, friends, and a crush. Then Alice's life starts to change because of one thing...drugs. As Alice starts abusing drugs more and more, she finds herself doing things that she never thought she would. What's going to happen to Alice? I got to experience first hand what it was like for Alice. I mean I was reading exactly what she was going through, and it was like I was right there with her. Before I read her diary I never really realized how tough life is for druggies. I would recommend everyone read this book to see how horrible drugs really are, or they could go ask Alice.

Rating:
Summary: Go Ask Alice
Review: Go Ask Alice is a book about a young 15 year old girl who gets involved in drugs. Alice has lived in the same house all her life with her mom, dad, younger bother, and younger sister. Her dad received a promotion, which means a new jod and a new school. They move into a big Spainish style house, and Alice is happy. During the summer she stays with her grandmother & sickly grandfather, when she's invited to a party. The drug abuse begins. I think that Go Ask Alice is an excellent book for young readers. I liked mostly everything about the book, however I think if it were a little longer in Alice's entries it would be better. My favorite part is when Alice is writing what happened in the rehab center and and truly decides to get help from any more attacks drug addicts at her school. In this part she is telling about how the candy she ate had been covered by drugs and is making her see bugs [like worms] eating her alive.