REVIEW: Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice is a novel that has transcended generations. It was published in 1971 and has only become more popular with time, making it a full-fledged modern classic.

It has always been published under the name, or rather lack thereof, Anonymous, but it is widely believed that Beatrice Sparks is the author. The events match up with the events between 1968 through 1970, and the title was taken from the infamous Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit," which is about the equally infamous adventures of Alice in Wonderland and LSD.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The story is told from a 15 year old girl's diary entries. We never find out who our narrator is, and there was a lot of controversy as to whether the dairy entries were real accounts from a real person, and was originally published as a piece of nonfiction until the 80's. The story follows the life of our unnamed diary author, documenting her family's move, strife at school, dealing with siblings and guys, sex, as well as sexuality, and drugs and alcohol. What starts the downward spiral is a LSD-laced soda that the narrator unknowingly accepts at her first "cool, popular party." She has a good trip, so she becomes much more adventurous with promiscuity, alcohol, various pills and intravenous drugs. She runs away no less than 2 times where she lives with strangers in poverty, before returning home to get clean, where her classmates harass her for refusing to sell them drugs or party with them anymore. She is slipped drugs by a enraged classmate while she is babysitting for a family friend, has a bad trip, and injures herself and endangers the kid she is watching. She is placed in a psych ward for a little while, and after she is released she finally feels that she is in a better place and decides to stop journaling. She kills herself three weeks after that decision.

I had some problems with this book. First of all, it was very short, but took me a couple days longer than I thought it would to get through because the tone of the main character yo-yo'd so much; she had very extreme mood swings and when she was high the story was extremely confusing. This was not surprising, as the book is about drug addiction, but it did make for a bit of heavy reading for such a short novel.

Second of all, I find this story to be a little... extreme? Almost disingenuous. This book was marketed as a cautionary story against doing drugs for teens. I think this story is a big stretch for a girl who had no experience with drugs that she would jump so quickly and comfortably into using drugs at all, not to mention using all sorts of other drugs to the point that she is addicted within weeks to an entire myriad of substances. I also find it hard to believe that classmates would be that mad about her deciding to stop doing drugs, especially to the point of harassing her and slipping her drugs. I take this as either akin to the cheesy "Reefer Madness" way of explaining drugs to kids, or perhaps a very confusing but intentional way to make the author seem so unreasonably paranoid or in such mental anguish that she couldn't tell what was really happening, couldn't handle detoxing, or wanted to believe that she hadn't fallen off the wagon on purpose.

All in all, the story was a roller coaster; I see why it was so controversial, and why it has fascinated readers for better part of 50 years. I think it was primarily an overzealous cautionary tale meant to scare the younger generation at the time.

Tell me your thoughts on Go Ask Alice!

#review #fiction #spoilers #diary #3Stars