Go Ask Alice

This was the response I wrote for Go Ask Alice, a book by 'an anonymous teen,' but most likely by the famous sensationalizing author Beatrice Sparks, the women responsible for 'discovering' other 'diaries' of troubled teens.
Several of my friends in high school did drugs and I can tell you that not one of them ended up at all like the girl in Go Ask Alice. That is because this “diary” is fictitious rubbish written with the contradictory motive to ‘keep kids away from drugs’ while telling them all about them and getting them interested.
To me there is lots of evidence that this is not a real diary. The vocabulary used is not typical of a teenager. The way the girl’s life flows also follows too much of a tradition plot line: she likes one boy at the start, a bunch of stuff happens to her and then a nice boy comes along and loves her for who she is. Then, oh no, she dies just when everything was looking up. Instead of being powerful, I found this to be the most clichéd and lazy ending. Speaking of cliché, there is nothing more tired and done than adolescent fiction in the form of a diary or journal.
Another reason this “diary’s” legitimacy questionable is the very fact that it would exist. Are we to believe that this girl who is higher than a kite and living on the streets is still faithfully keeping a diary like a good Mormon girl should? When she was strung out on whatever did she really have the thought to go and find some paper and pen to put down her thoughts? I find that hard to believe.
Okay, so the girl starts doing drugs and by the next month she’s already selling them and devoting her life to them. That's believable.
I was not empathetic with the narrator. From page one I found it hard to even read what she had to say. She was a spoiled, selfish girl who thought the entire world revolved around her. She’s crying about her comfortable life in Suburbia while all over the world kids her age are going to bed starving with no meal coming the next day. I just can’t empathize with her or recommend this book to anyone.

Walk Two Moons

This is the first book I read for my adolescent literature class: Sharon Creech’s Newberry Award winning book, Walk Two Moons, tells the stories of two young girls, Salamanca Hiddle and Phoebe Winterbottom. Salamanca, or, Sal, for short, is the adolescent narrator on a trip to Idaho with her grandparents. She is on her way to see her mother, who left home one day and never came back. Along the way, she tells the story to her grandparents of a girl she knew in Ohio, Phoebe.
As she tells Phoebe’s story, she also reveals details to the reader from her own life and the memories she has of her mother. Though the two girls are vastly different in personality, they are similar in that both their mothers leave home unexpectedly.
This deceptively simple book is well-deserving of the awards and praise it has received. In it, Creech has tackled timeless themes in a way that young people can relate to and understand. The book contains several elements that make it fun to read: suspense, humor, originality and good, solid storytelling.
Another accomplishment of the book is its ability to successfully get the reader to empathize with its characters. By the end, I felt like I knew Sal and I wanted her to see her mom again almost as much as she did. The pacing of the book which led to the ending was masterful.

I haven't posted much in awhile because school started and I've been busy with that. However, I have been reading some good books in my classes and will post some of the things I write about them for my classes soon.