# has anyone ever read the book Go AsK Alice?

Category: book Nook

## Post 1 by JonasBrothersFan4ever (All American Girl ) on Friday, 07-Nov-2003 11:30:05

I read the book Go Ask Alice. I thought it was interesting. What do you guys think about it? I don't like that she was on drugs because that is wrong, but it was i9nteresting to see what her life was like when when she was on them.

## Post 2 by metal_girl (Account disabled) on Friday, 07-Nov-2003 19:04:57

That was a great book! True, the drugs were very bad for her and it nailed in my already made decision to never take them. I've always wanted to take a glance at life in the hippy days of the 60s and that was the perfect book because it was based on true life. I've even heard of people who made a play of it and used a lot of cool 60s music in the background. I don't usually like those kinds of true non-fiction things unless it's on an interesting subject and that was definitely an interesting read. I was required to read it for high school English and glad I read it!

## Post 3 by Uwfo (Generic Zoner) on Saturday, 08-Nov-2003 13:43:48

I have heard that play, it is very good, and it is a lot of good music from the 60s. We heard it in the English classes at school. Uwfo.

## Post 4 by gummybear16 (Account disabled) on Sunday, 09-Nov-2003 22:47:32

Yeah I read that book too. It was cool if you want a book or should I say two books that deal with the same kinds of stuff; read The Outsiders, or the ssecqual That Was Then This Is now. They were great books.

## Post 5 by tibbsa (Newborn Zoner) on Thursday, 27-Nov-2003 10:43:16

I'm not 100% sure on this, but the name rings a bell. I looked it up on the CNIB catalogue, and I think I may well have read this a few years ago. I remember finding the end result rather sad, especially given the way it all started...

## Post 6 by gummybear16 (Account disabled) on Monday, 01-Dec-2003 17:29:02

Yeah the ending was pretty sad! I mean I almost cried!

## Post 7 by Owen Deathstalker (Generic Zoner) on Friday, 05-Dec-2003 16:46:48

Well, I haven't read it but I'm going to. I've heard it's really good

## Post 8 by gummybear16 (Account disabled) on Monday, 08-Dec-2003 17:39:31

Oh man!! It's really good! You'll like it! It explains the reasons why teens use drugs, and the strugle they have after they quit using them, and how adictive they are!

## Post 9 by rainbowfairy (Account disabled) on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2003 14:33:07

Man, that book was awesome. It was so sad. It certainly convinced me never to do drugs. I mean look at the things that happened to her, even before she died.

## Post 10 by gummybear16 (Account disabled) on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2003 16:56:07

Yeah the sad part was when they put the bummer in those chocolate covered peanuts! That was bad!

## Post 11 by Owen Deathstalker (Generic Zoner) on Saturday, 13-Dec-2003 10:09:59

Well, I finally read the book and it was great! I wonder how she really died! I mean, after all she went through, it couldn't have been an accident.

## Post 12 by Miss Gorgeous (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Monday, 11-Jul-2005 12:17:52

Hello to all, I know this message was not replied to for a long time but anyway here goes my reply. I read the book Go Ask Alice, it is an interesting book, really good one. You can also think that you know Alice. Well I was just wondering about the same thing, how did she die? Is it because of intoxicationn of drugs or is it because of not writing for too long and hiding what she needed to tell everyone. It builds up and it pops. So, anyway theres a lot of reasons to why she died we just don’t know why. This is a true story I think and its good to read it to be aware of the reality about Drugs, alchohol, and sex can do to destroy someones life. By the way, I remember Alice and how she like to go on trips. I bet she likes Speed the most. OMG lets not go there and what about the guy she really loved Richard? Am I right.

## Post 13 by Siriusly Severus (The ESTJ 1w9 3w4 6w7 The Taskmaste) on Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 1:38:55

I might try it, but my family, I mean extended family is really effected by this, so I might not... I don't know. It's not easy for me, this subject, so. I really don't know. I have seen multiple almost too many cases where people die from various synptoms from Drugs and alcohols, so... Yes, even smoking. I think I had a cousin who went crazy for a year, but now she's fine.

## Post 14 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 07-Feb-2008 0:02:07

Go Ask alice is an awesome book. The ending was kind of a twist, I didn't see it coming, at least not the way it happened.

## Post 15 by spfan15 (O&A Party Rock!!!) on Saturday, 09-Feb-2008 1:06:08

I started reading it in the seventh grade, but after a parent found out that it had the word, "Sex" in it, they had to take back the books. But I definetly want to start reading it on my own. i read the first chapter and it was really good so far.``

## Post 16 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 09-Feb-2008 13:59:59

Oh for God's sake, some parents need serious help. As if the kid hasn't heard the word, sex, and a heck of a lot worse by that age. Good grief!

## Post 17 by Reyami (I've broken five thousand! any more awards going?) on Sunday, 10-Feb-2008 10:13:21

I agree. I have not read the book myself, but did someone in an earlier post give away the ending? not sure if there's any point in reading it now ...

## Post 18 by Miss Prism (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Friday, 22-Feb-2008 1:44:45

Though it is a good read, it's not a true story!
Here's a bit from the Snopes website. The url follows the quoted bits. See the site for the complete article.
Go Ask Alice was the product of Beatrice Sparks, an author who has come out with a number of "teens who saw their lives ruined by their bad choices" offerings,
each one presented as a true story, often in the form of a diary of an anonymous teen:
The precise authorship of Go Ask Alice is still a bit of a mystery. Beatrice Sparks is presented as its editor rather than its author, and one tantalizing
mention in a 1998 New York Times book review indicates the book might have been the work of several people:
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.
Our best guess is that a number of folks work at churning out these cautionary tales, which are then presented to an overly accepting public as real diaries
of anonymous teens. Yet on the question of authorship, one thing is startlingly clear: whoever wrote the Go Ask Alice "diary" was not a 15-year-old girl.
Girls of that age do not write the way the journal entries of Go Ask Alice are penned — both in terms of structure and content, it fails the adolescent
test. For example, our doomed teen goes on for more than four pages about her first LSD experience, describing what happened and how, yet diary entries
dealing with her broken heart over the loss of her one true love are given only
two short paragraphs, barely a third of a page. Similarly, school, teachers, the casual gossip of the day, and ordinary "He said; she said" chit-chat which
make up the bulk of teen girl chatter go almost unmentioned in this book, even though it's hard to imagine a real teenager's diary in which these topics
wouldn't account for the greater number of the entries. Meanwhile, the "diary" is filled with sizeable words one would hardly expect to find in a teen's
private account of her life. Polysyllabic terms such as "gregarious," "impregnable," "conscientious," and "ecstatic" turn up within four pages of each
other, yet we'd be surprised to find any one of these words in a real teen's diary. It's not that teens don't use large words in conversation or include
them in written work meant to be handed in at school, but they certainly do not record their deepest, darkest secrets in words they'd be hard-pressed to
spell. Remember, a diary is not meant for the eyes of anyone other than the diarist, so the writing style used tends to be far more casual than that employed
in pieces intended to be read by others.
The unnamed teen's fall is formulaic as well. The "unsuspecting first time" is a standard plot device used by writers looking to keep their main characters
sympathetic. This gal's long slide into a pine box begins not with an actual intent to do drugs to see what all the shouting is about, but with an act
of bad companions who introduce her to the world of drugs without her permission. Her fate thus becomes the potential fate of any teen, even one determined
to "Just say no."
We noted one further theme that jumped off the pages of Go Ask Alice:
with the exception of the diarist, every teen in the book who was heavily involved with drugs and whose home situation was described came from a broken
home. It was not difficult to pick out the underlying secondary moralistic message, that divorce is one of the great social evils of our time.
Another point to ponder: In an era when journalistic exposés are the coin of the realm, how is it that after more than thirty years (and "More than 4 million
copies sold"), no intrepid reporter has managed to track down the identity of Go Ask Alice's "anonymous" author? That in over three decades, none of the
people who knew this poor girl — friends, relatives, teachers, classmates — has ever identified or spoken about her is truly amazing. Our government doesn't
keep classified secrets so well.
The final proof, however, lies in plain sight on the book's copyright notice page:
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places,
and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp

## Post 19 by spfan15 (O&A Party Rock!!!) on Saturday, 23-Feb-2008 5:09:17

That makes a lot of sense, you know that?

## Post 20 by _rory_ (predictable kryptic) on Saturday, 23-Feb-2008 11:50:03

Oh sure. Regarding the last post, I'm sure everyone believes everything they read on the internet. It is nonfiction, so that makes it true. All that above was speculation.

## Post 21 by DancingAfterDark (I just keep on posting!) on Saturday, 23-Feb-2008 17:35:09

First, I have read the book several times and I think it's a great, although definitely depressing, read. And there are parts of it that truly disturb me (her bad acid trip, the thoughts she has about her grandmother's death, et cetera).
Second, I find the things from the website mentioned in post 18 extremely patronizing and generalized. The book starts out with the girl going on about her weight issues and her desire for Roger (I think that's his name) to notice her and ask her out. She talks about her mother's constant nagging, her goals for becoming healthier, her depression after moving, feeling like she doesn't fit in, and the different ways she wants to try doing her hair. If that isn't a typical teenage girl's diary, I don't know what is. Just because she doesn't spend pages and pages talking about the latest gossip and which girl stole the other girl's boyfriend doesn't make it any less likely to be real. Also, to say that it wasn't written by a fifteen-year-old girl because of the big words used is insulting, to say the least. Not every fifteen-year-old girl is an airhead who, like, only knows big words because they're spelled out in cheers. And she was a bookish girl, if I remember right. The drugs became pretty much the center of her existence, so it makes sense that they would warrant more pages than the boys she loved and lost. And she does go on quite enough about both, just not all in one concentrated spot. I'm not saying it is or isn't real, I don't care, I just found most of the reasons given very judgmental.
Okay, end rant. Sorry. Assumptions and generalizations like that just really irritate me.

## Post 22 by Miss Prism (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Monday, 25-Feb-2008 5:51:38

Yes, I agree that the vocabulary reason was insulting--I had that thought as I read, as a former teenager who enjoyed reading dictionaries! LOL
Just reporting, that's all. If it makes for additional discussion, good, then.

## Post 23 by Miss Prism (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Monday, 25-Feb-2008 23:08:18

And btw, this information can be found in more than one place. I am not so gullible, to the person who implied it, as to believe everything I read. I posted an excerpt from the first site that came up in my search. The fact that there's an impressive list of other titles by that woman, and since the book clearly states that it is fiction, why believe anything else? There are many fictional journal-type books published!

## Post 24 by musicangel (Generic Zoner) on Thursday, 15-May-2008 17:28:45

I have read that book that is a very good book

## Post 25 by GreenTurtle (Music is life. Love. Vitality.) on Saturday, 19-Jul-2008 12:47:22

I just got done reading this book. It was a really good story, but I didn't like the way she wrote in her diary sometimes. Isn't that a true story, a real person's diary? In that case, she seems like an airhead. I mean, come on, "oh dear, precious friend diary?" What is that? She also seemed a little immature for her age. But all in all, it was a great book. It really shows you the road of destruction drugs can take you down. It was also so sad that every time she would try to quit, she would either give in to pressure, or would be tricked into it. And those girls that went to her school were horrible to her. I was also mad that she got locked up in a mental hospital for something she did unknowingly. I think that was the saddest part.