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.
Tell us what you really think! Just kidding. I have never read this book, but is the girl a Mormon girl?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like this book is quite contrived and like you said might just make a teen more interested in drugs than they otherwise might be.
I have heard of this book before, but never read it. What led you to reading it?
I had to read it for my adolescent literature class. I would not recommend it.
ReplyDeleteThe book never directly says that the girl is Mormon, but there are hints that maybe she is. The 'editor' of the book, Beatrice Sparks, is LDS and lives in Provo.