Go Ask Alice

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Summary: the most important book I ever read
Review: I read this book when I was in 6th grade ( I am now 41 years old.) This book made such an impact on me as a teenager that I never did drugs growing up, or in my life. I now am buying the book for my kids hoping it will influence their decisions.

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Summary: please please please read this book
Review: it took me just under 2 hours to read the 160 pages of this beautifully written book, which really says something about the book when you consider that my average reading speed is one book every 3 months or so! although i count my self fortunate not to be involved in the world of drugs, or to be close to anyone that is, i don't think that the value of this book can be underestimated. it has really helped to conquer my prejudices which i previously had about drug users. be prepared for a couple of well spent hours, and make sure you have a big box of tissues next to you!

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Summary: GO ASK ALICE
Review: Go Ask Alice, written anonymously, is an incredibly absorbing story about the tragic life of a young troubled teenager who becomes sucked into the disturbed world of drugs. A colorfully detailed diary of a once shy girl gives us an insight of drugs, and how they can destroy a person. From cover to cover, Go Ask Alice is one of the best books I have ever read. This book is all the more intriguing because it wasn't originally intended to be published and sold. We are given true feelings from a girl who happened to be tricked into her first drug use.
"A raindrop just splashed on my forehead and it was like a tear from Heaven. Am I really that alone in the whole wide gray world? Is it possible that even God is crying for me? Oh no, no, no... I'm losing my mind. Please God, help me." This quote is an excellent example of the author's tone and pain. At this point in the book, we are seeing how she reacts to her loneliness, and living without her family around her. Here, she is lost. She doesn't know who she is, and what she is meant to be. In this quote we see her confusion. She has moved out of her house at the age of 15 and is alone in the cold world. Her vivid language leaves no secrets.
The book is written from a teenager's point of view, (which everyone knows is a pressured time in one's life.) This book couldn't have a better lesson in a true story diary. It has all the plot requirements as a thought up story, and an intense character development known to teens and adults throughout the world. What could be easier to relate to?
If any author were to write a book as a personal diary, and eventually have it be seen by the world and appreciated as a lesson, Go ask Alice is the perfect example. One additional important decision of the publishers was the last page; the epilogue. They added their own truthful information of the character that tied the story together, and formed a baseline of why she was here, to give her story, and how she and everyone around her suffered. It's a defining tragic paragraph that concludes the story and really makes you reflect the entire book over and over again.
When studying the character of the narrator, we see she transforms in less than a year from the shy, new student, to one of the biggest drug sellers and users in the school. She becomes so desperate that she eventually visits an elementary school to sell to a 9 year old. Eventually she regrets this and holds on to her guilt for a long time. Watching the development of the main character, we see her priorities and decisions change throughout the book. In the beginning she always made the smart choice that was best for her and everyone around her, and eventually the decisions developed into depending on becoming popular, until she became caught up in drugs where her decisions were only based on what she wanted and how much better it could make her for the time being.
The writing style is what made the book easier to read. The fact it was written as a journal, just made me feel even closer to the author. It was best because there were no secrets, because she was writing in her diary letting everything out. She thought she would be the only person to read it, so she wasn't scared to really include vivid details and how she reacted. For example, one excerpt talks about how one of her "trips" were. She says how she could feel every part of the carpet below her, and "spilling" onto her. Her word syntax is understandable, and during the drugs incredibly descriptive. I don't think she would have included this if she knew other people would read it, because inside she knows that it's not something healthy and it would hurt so many people, and she shouldn't enjoy something that inflicts pain on her loved ones. There was also an important lesson to learn in the book. She said she wanted to make a difference on teen lives, and she did. I know that I made an emotional connection with her throughout the book, and you will too.
You don't get a better written and more intriguing book. It lures you in from the first page. I couldn't put it down, and every single aspect of the story is easy to relate to, because it's real. Her experiences and her tragedies really happened. She said how she felt, and this book has made more of an impact on me than people I have known. I was shown everything on the mind of a drug user; he guilt, the obsession, and the pain. It doesn't get better than Go Ask Alice.

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Summary: The Therapeutic Savior
Review: Go Ask Alice, by an anonymous author, is about a girl whose life changes drastically when she goes to a party and drinks a can of coke. Seems pretty normal, doesn't it? Not for the author. There was LSD in ten out of fourteen of the cans of coke at the party; the author happened to get a spiked can. She then becomes curious and wants to try other drugs. From then on,
The vibe of the book, Go Ask Alice, is informal and relaxed. It is a journal in which one is informed about her struggles fighting drug addictions, being raped, going to a mental institution, and many more grueling details of her not-so-average teenage life. Go Ask Alice seems to establish a strong relationship with the reader, referring to the reader as "my dear precious friend"(140). The syntax is unlike any other book I've read. Since this is a young girl's journal the word choice is relaxed, casual, and often changes with her mood. For example, in the beginning; when she's happy, and positive, she uses "confidently" a lot but towards the end, when she's fighting drugs and bad behavior, she uses the word "man" a lot. This change in word choice shows the difference in how she carries herself and how interested she is in the way she looks or sounds. Each sentence is also a different length. For example, on October 22nd she says, "The movie was fun with Scott." (6) This is a short sentence which, out of context, doesn't have much meaning but still gets the point across. On October 26th she says, "I keep thinking about our teacher in gym teaching us modern dance and always saying that it will make our bodies strong and healthy for childbearing, then she harps and harps that everything must be graceful, graceful, graceful"(7). The authors' word choice allows the reader to understand what kind of mood she is in. When she doesn't like something, she needs to state her opinion and make sure it's known that she didn't like her teacher talking about modern dance. The author plays with the lengths of paragraphs and entries. There are some entries that are two or three pages while there are other's that are one or two words. For example she says on September 19th "Dad's birthday. Not much." Then again on September 20th "It's my birthday. I'm 15. Nothing" (2). Some more lengthy entries go from page 178 until 181. This is very significant in that these are two completely different times in the authors' life. This is significant because it shows that the author, although she writes more with greater details, she is more upset about things and has more negative feelings in her life than she did when she started keeping journals. When she says the first quote she is happy, and has a positive attitude, but in the second example, she is in a mental hospital and has no one to talk to but her journal.
The author's life, after she starts with drugs, can be summed up in just ten words that she says on January 24th. "After you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs" (85). This girl constantly says "We've had it! The garbage that goes with drugs makes the price too god-damned high for anyone to pay" (68). She constantly says how bad drugs are and how badly she never wants to get on them again once she does finally get off. This becomes redundant and frustrating after a while. She says it over and over again but always falls short of achieving her goal. This is the one and only weakness I found to the book.
I feel the need to elaborate on the ending of the book since it was so intense. If you want to read the book on your own, I advise you to stop reading.
If one studies the ending of Go Ask Alice one will find that the author's journal was really her savior. When she was writing in it she could solve her problems, or at least deal with them. The author's journal was her therapeutic savior. As stated earlier, the author writes a lot in very descriptive language when she is upset about something. She gives a lot of detail when she's mad but when something excites her she doesn't elaborate on what happened. When she's upset she gets out all her anger and clears her head when she writes in her journal which is why she died three weeks after deciding not to keep another journal. I think what happened was that she had so many problems and she was keeping them all to herself that she finally just overdosed on drugs and died. When I read the last page I was absolutely shocked. She was having such a good life, writing everything in her journal, turning everything around, and then, right when she decided not to keep another journal we read
"Epilogue
The subject of this book died three weeks after her decision not to keep another diary.
Her parents came home from a movie and found her dead. They called the police and the hospital but there was nothing anyone could do.
Was it an accidental overdose? A premeditated overdose? No one knows, and in some ways that question isn't important. What must be of concern is that she died, and that she was only one of thousands of drugs deaths that year."

Because she decided not to keep another journal, she couldn't deal with he problems and had nothing to tell her thoughts to so she, again, started up drugs and died. Maybe if she had kept another journal, she might not have died that way. Just watch out next time you go to a party and drink a can of coke -- that's how it all started for this girl.

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Summary: A book you can read twice
Review: I have read this book three times throught my teenage years, and three times it has meant something entirely different to me. It is such an awesome book. Following a girl through her extremely troublesome experience through drugs, I think this is a book that every teenager should read at some point. It tells a tale and it has a lesson as well.

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Summary: Alice is great
Review: i love this book. i know a LOT of people say they think its ficticious, but i dont care wether it is or isnt, i just love the story. i find it very real, and very awakening. the struggles, and failures... i dunno. just all very real. i would say that most would enjoy this book like i have, so please, i urge you to read it!

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Summary: it was ok
Review: I started the book anxious to knowing more about this alice character but once getting into it all i was waiting for was a climax, or some point in which i would understand the reasoning behind this diary being published. i found myself disappointed at the end when nothing of value happened, surely this character or girl, made the mistakes everyone thought about risking and yeah she helped me experience things that i thought i wasnt ready to experience in reality but it was too drastic and seemed like the only reason it was there was to show you morals and teach you lessons. I read Jay's Journals, which is the same sort of idea but was much more fascinated by the alternative topics that maybe you really wont experience unless you look for it your teen years. This book is actually for younger kids, before they meet new people and grow up. its for kids who wont ever want to do anything their mothers dont want them to. but i advize not to get this book because its meaningless, and wont really change you, like books should...a bit of advice; jays journals, and the perks of being a wallflower are much better and if you thought or think you'll relate to this, then you'll most likely relate to those better....thanks for your time

Rating:
Summary: Eh.
Review: To me, Go Ask Alice seems more like anti-drug propaganda than a teenage girl's diary; however, it is still an interesting book to read.

Go Ask Alice is the (supposedly real) diary of an average, teenage girl who goes askew from her life due to her inadvertantly taking LSD at a party. Basically, she falls into a life of hedonism caused by drugs. She repents from the said hedonism and drugs, unknowlingly eats cookies with LSD in them after her repentence, goes crazy, and is institutionalized because of it. (Do not read the rest if you do not wish to know the ending) Eventually, she gets better, is happy with herself and family, seems to have completely changed, and randomly dies a little while later from a drug overdose.

It certainly is an interesting story, and it most likely had some heart warming, Lifetime Original Movie effect on somebody or helped persuade some Joe Crackpipe to try to give up his drug habit (although SHE DIES when she does), but I really doubt that it is true.

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Summary: a society gone bad
Review: A Society Gone Bad
Society has a big influence on teenagers and on the way that they are suppose to act along with the was they are support to look. What I mean by this is society has told teenagers that they are suppose to look like the supermodels in magazines and that being an outsider is not the cool thing to be. That teenagers are suppose to fit in with the popular crowd.
The book that I picked is called ?Go Ask Alice? and it was written by a anonymous author. This book Deals with the struggles that teenagers have faced since my parent?s parents have been in school and the issues that most parents try to ignore. The book is about a teenager named Alice and her struggle to become popular instead of being an outsider at her high school. Alice feels that no one understands her so she starts a diary which in the book she acts as if it is a real person. Alice tells the diary everything and this helps her to express herself since she feels like no one else can understand her.
Alice also talks about how she makes herself fit in with the popular kids and she is not being herself which she ends up forgetting who she really is and what she stands for. I can relate because I did the same thing. I just wanted everyone to like me so I acted different ways around different people so that I would be excepted.
The phase that people use about ?hanging out with the wrong crowd? is what you see happen to Alice. Jill and Bill are two of the people that she starts hanging out with and they both do drugs which sparks Alice?s attention. The first drug that she tries is LSD then marijuana, acid and then speed. It was the cool thing to do because now she was invited to the parties that the popular kids had. She felt that it was the thing for her to do if she wanted to be excepted.
something else that happens to Alice is that she gets rapid by one of her guy friends while she was under the influence of drugs. this was a wake up call for Alice. This is where she is trying to stay away but her drug friend keep pressuring her to do it and it is hard for Alice to resist. So she starts again. This is the major struggle for Alice
The book deals with real life situations that teenagers have to deal with everyday. I think that this book Would be good for teenagers and parents to read just so that the parents will have a clue of what their teenager meant have to deal with. Peer pressure still excised today and if parents at least talk to their kids about drugs they may have a better chance to say no.
?Go Ask Alice ? is educational for parents because it will give them an out look on the drugs that teenagers are using and this way they can look out for signs that their teen is using them.

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Summary: Storytime!
Review: This book is definitely entertaining, but is a work of fiction. And, while I thought this was a very good story, I was curious about a couple of things. Part of the "diary" was said to be written on scraps of paper, paper bags, etc. How interesting that a drug-addicted runaway managed to keep track of all those bits and pieces! In addition, how many young teenagers would use the word "echelon"? So I award this work one star due to deception, and very bold deception at that.