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| Go Ask Alice by Anonymous |
Book Summary:
This narrative is told from the point of view of a fifteen year old girl who begins writing journal entries to document her beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about a variety of different issues that are common to young girls of her age like the desire for social recognition among her peers, the complex relationship with her parents, weight issues, and her crushes. After her father accepts a new job in another community, she finds that she is an outsider at her new high school. She returns to her former town for the summer to spend time with her grandparents and becomes re-acquainted with Jill, an old classmate, who invites her to a party, where unbeknownst to her, drugs are being served. This is where she unintentionally has her first experience with LSD which is hidden in a glass of soda she is drinking.
Her first drug experience was exhilarating, and so “Alice” quickly develops shallow relationships with the other kids from the party in hopes to continue getting LSD. While high on LSD, she has her first sexual experience and worries she may be pregnant. The constant emotional pull of the drugs and the circumstances she finds herself in while trying to continue her high lead her to steal sleeping pills from her grandparents when she can no longer deal with the mental stress caused by her grandfather’s sudden heart attack and her emotional trauma following the meaningless loss of her virginity and subsequent pregnancy scare.
After returning to her parent’s home at the end of the summer, “Alice” meets Chris, and the two girls begin making a string of bad choices together including dating drug dealers, selling drugs, and finally running away to San Francisco together. Throughout her journal entries, the reader gets a sense that “Alice” knows the pain her actions are causing her family and she continuously tries to get clean. As she fervently tries to beat her drug addictions she experiences resentment from her former drug acquaintances, gets raped, and experiences periods of homelessness and dabbles in prostitution. Eventually, she returns home and moves to a new town with her family to make a fresh start. Before the move, things appear to be looking up for the young protagonist, when an unfortunate tragedy occurs.
Go ask Alice. (1971). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
This narrative is told from the point of view of a fifteen year old girl who begins writing journal entries to document her beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about a variety of different issues that are common to young girls of her age like the desire for social recognition among her peers, the complex relationship with her parents, weight issues, and her crushes. After her father accepts a new job in another community, she finds that she is an outsider at her new high school. She returns to her former town for the summer to spend time with her grandparents and becomes re-acquainted with Jill, an old classmate, who invites her to a party, where unbeknownst to her, drugs are being served. This is where she unintentionally has her first experience with LSD which is hidden in a glass of soda she is drinking.
Her first drug experience was exhilarating, and so “Alice” quickly develops shallow relationships with the other kids from the party in hopes to continue getting LSD. While high on LSD, she has her first sexual experience and worries she may be pregnant. The constant emotional pull of the drugs and the circumstances she finds herself in while trying to continue her high lead her to steal sleeping pills from her grandparents when she can no longer deal with the mental stress caused by her grandfather’s sudden heart attack and her emotional trauma following the meaningless loss of her virginity and subsequent pregnancy scare.
After returning to her parent’s home at the end of the summer, “Alice” meets Chris, and the two girls begin making a string of bad choices together including dating drug dealers, selling drugs, and finally running away to San Francisco together. Throughout her journal entries, the reader gets a sense that “Alice” knows the pain her actions are causing her family and she continuously tries to get clean. As she fervently tries to beat her drug addictions she experiences resentment from her former drug acquaintances, gets raped, and experiences periods of homelessness and dabbles in prostitution. Eventually, she returns home and moves to a new town with her family to make a fresh start. Before the move, things appear to be looking up for the young protagonist, when an unfortunate tragedy occurs.
Go ask Alice. (1971). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
My impressions:
I can understand why this book has been extremely controversial in the forty-one years since its initial publication. The topics are mature, ranging from drug use, attempted suicide, running away from home, sex, and ultimately the young narrators’ untimely death. I caution librarians about adding this title to a middle school library, where students as young as 10 might have access to the book. However, mature upper middle school and high school students could greatly benefit from this realistic view of drug use. The journal strips away the glamour and mystique of drug addiction and tells the terrifying reality of a drug addicted teen, who in the matter of a few months went from an ordinary life to a surreal existence filled with failing grades, horrific drug withdrawals, depression, and paranoia. If readers are able to look beyond the tragedy of the situation, they will gain insight into the realities of drug addiction and its enormous impact on adolescents. I found this novel heartbreaking at times because of its troublesome nature, but realize that it was an accurate portrayal of a young person’s experience. Life can be terrifying and unpredictable at times, but there is always a significant lesson that can be learned from moments of distress. This book highlights the importance of avoiding the perils both noticeable and those not as easily seen in the world around us.
Professional review:
(Ages 12 and up) ... ''Go Ask Alice,'' was published in 1971 as a ''real diary'' about a good girl who is turned on to drugs by friends, runs away, trades sex for fixes and dies. It is said to have sold more than four million copies. Linda Glovach, since exposed as one of the ''preparers'' -- let's call them forgers -- of ''Go Ask Alice,'' has just written ''Beauty Queen,'' about a girl who flees her alcoholic mother, becomes a stripper and dies of heroin addiction. And Melvin Burgess's ''Smack,'' published in England as ''Junk,'' portrays a boy who flees his alcoholic parents, sees his girlfriend turn to prostitution and becomes a heroin addict.
''Go Ask Alice'' is the most palatable, because, while it is poorly written and incredible, at least it is not derivative. The book's writers, who also include the author and physician Beatrice Sparks, have a tin ear for adolescent dialogue and a bad habit of driving home political points by poking fun at their characters. On July 9, the normal child Alice goes on her first acid trip. By Sept. 6, she is complaining, ''I'm getting so that no matter what I do I can't please the Establishment.'' By December, matters are grimmer: ''I can't believe that soon it will have to be mother against daughter and father against son to make the new world.'' Steal this book, she almost begs.
Read more than a quarter-century later, the Vietnam-era themes seem quaint, and they are laughably written. The ''Alice'' writers, or editors, were delivering a cautionary tale: Fall in with the wrong crowd and you will do drugs, turn against America and dishonor your parents. Assuming the voice of a 15-year-old was a rhetorical necessity, for teen-agers are not overwhelmed with respect for their elders' advice.
But such a narrative leap requires talent, strong talent. Some adults can write first-person adolescents well (of current writers, Tom Perrotta and Ron Carlson come to mind), but most will overreach with their lingo, write with too much sophistication or too little, or fall into anachronism. Yet the ''Alice'' writers faced a real problem, one that Glovach and Burgess should be respected for tackling. How can one write for young people about horrible things? For lesser writers, that is where the formula enters. The young people must not choose drugs -- drugs must befall them. ... I do not think children should read about heroin addiction. But if they must, it is a moral concern that the book be well written. A good war movie makes you despise war, a terrible one makes you grin, but a mediocre one might send you to the recruiting office. Producing literature that keeps children from shooting up is possible only if the writing is fresh and skillful, never trite. These three failed attempts may not send children down the road to addiction, but they won't have them wearing the path back to the library, either.
Oppenheimer, M. (1998, November 15). Just say ‘uh-oh’. [Review of the book Go ask Alice, I can understand why this book has been extremely controversial in the forty-one years since its initial publication. The topics are mature, ranging from drug use, attempted suicide, running away from home, sex, and ultimately the young narrators’ untimely death. I caution librarians about adding this title to a middle school library, where students as young as 10 might have access to the book. However, mature upper middle school and high school students could greatly benefit from this realistic view of drug use. The journal strips away the glamour and mystique of drug addiction and tells the terrifying reality of a drug addicted teen, who in the matter of a few months went from an ordinary life to a surreal existence filled with failing grades, horrific drug withdrawals, depression, and paranoia. If readers are able to look beyond the tragedy of the situation, they will gain insight into the realities of drug addiction and its enormous impact on adolescents. I found this novel heartbreaking at times because of its troublesome nature, but realize that it was an accurate portrayal of a young person’s experience. Life can be terrifying and unpredictable at times, but there is always a significant lesson that can be learned from moments of distress. This book highlights the importance of avoiding the perils both noticeable and those not as easily seen in the world around us.
Professional review:
(Ages 12 and up) ... ''Go Ask Alice,'' was published in 1971 as a ''real diary'' about a good girl who is turned on to drugs by friends, runs away, trades sex for fixes and dies. It is said to have sold more than four million copies. Linda Glovach, since exposed as one of the ''preparers'' -- let's call them forgers -- of ''Go Ask Alice,'' has just written ''Beauty Queen,'' about a girl who flees her alcoholic mother, becomes a stripper and dies of heroin addiction. And Melvin Burgess's ''Smack,'' published in England as ''Junk,'' portrays a boy who flees his alcoholic parents, sees his girlfriend turn to prostitution and becomes a heroin addict.
''Go Ask Alice'' is the most palatable, because, while it is poorly written and incredible, at least it is not derivative. The book's writers, who also include the author and physician Beatrice Sparks, have a tin ear for adolescent dialogue and a bad habit of driving home political points by poking fun at their characters. On July 9, the normal child Alice goes on her first acid trip. By Sept. 6, she is complaining, ''I'm getting so that no matter what I do I can't please the Establishment.'' By December, matters are grimmer: ''I can't believe that soon it will have to be mother against daughter and father against son to make the new world.'' Steal this book, she almost begs.
Read more than a quarter-century later, the Vietnam-era themes seem quaint, and they are laughably written. The ''Alice'' writers, or editors, were delivering a cautionary tale: Fall in with the wrong crowd and you will do drugs, turn against America and dishonor your parents. Assuming the voice of a 15-year-old was a rhetorical necessity, for teen-agers are not overwhelmed with respect for their elders' advice.
But such a narrative leap requires talent, strong talent. Some adults can write first-person adolescents well (of current writers, Tom Perrotta and Ron Carlson come to mind), but most will overreach with their lingo, write with too much sophistication or too little, or fall into anachronism. Yet the ''Alice'' writers faced a real problem, one that Glovach and Burgess should be respected for tackling. How can one write for young people about horrible things? For lesser writers, that is where the formula enters. The young people must not choose drugs -- drugs must befall them. ... I do not think children should read about heroin addiction. But if they must, it is a moral concern that the book be well written. A good war movie makes you despise war, a terrible one makes you grin, but a mediocre one might send you to the recruiting office. Producing literature that keeps children from shooting up is possible only if the writing is fresh and skillful, never trite. These three failed attempts may not send children down the road to addiction, but they won't have them wearing the path back to the library, either.
by Anonymous]. The New York Times 7(2), 36. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com.
Library Uses:
Because this book tackles very mature subjects, and it often banned, I would advise against specifically highlighting the book through a book talk or book trailer, especially in a school library. However, it would make an excellent addition to a book display for red ribbon week, posted with a short excerpt showing the grim realities of drug use and addiction and paired with similar titles.
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