Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice, was a diary of troubled teen dealing with pressure of drugs and alcohol and high school. The book was Alice’s own personal diary and published by an anonymous author after she died of a drug overdose. Through the diary Alice shows how she starts of as an average teenager who, like most girls, is trying to lose weight and become popular. As soon as Alice’s diet finally starts working and she begins making friends and even dating, her world is ripped from under her feet when her father announces that there moving. An upset and angry Alice slides back into her misfit attitude and starts to gain weight, but these are the least of her problems.
Shortly after moving, Alice pays a visit to her grandparents back home where she reunites with some former peers from her old school. There she discovers LSD, a lethal drug that sends her spiraling into the world of drugs and alcohol. After short periods on and off drugs she hits a new low when she runs away from home. There she loses track of time doing fatal drugs every day and drinking alcohol with under age teens like her. When she returns home she is sent to hospital where she is treated for her addiction and other diseases. After this life threatening scare it seems that Alice is finally off drugs and is focusing on family and friends. Although the diary ends with her content and safe at home the epilogue, written from the publisher’s perspective, shows that a while later Alice tragically dies of a drug overdose.
This book really resonates with me because as a teenage girl I understand the pressure to be thin and look good and also the pressure of alcohol. I thought it was interesting and different that the book was a diary and I also liked the mystery of it since we don’t know who published her diary and what actually happened to Alice in the later years of her life. This is one of the best most honest books I’ve read in a long time.