Library Book: Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

Published: 7/13/1999

Pages: 192

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Review: library book

Amazon

A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale.January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.

I read this book because I heard it was banned. I love how when people ban books it just makes them so much more readable. I had no clue what I was getting into with this one, but I just knew I needed to read it. I felt it was an easy read as it was told by way of a diary. Our main character has a family who loves her and you would think it is the ones that come from a crappy family that falls into addiction. It isn't like that with this teenager. She is at a party and that starts her downfall, now I am not sure fully how the drug scene life works, but it seems rather quick to become addicted, but I guess that is how it happens. Drugs are easy to get from anyone who has them, and we see that in this story being told. In the diary, we see how she battles with trying and wanting to stay clean and then how easy it is to fall back into it. I will say I wasn't happy with the ending and it left with me with more questions than I wanted. Overall, a good book that was a quick read. 

  

Beatrice Sparks was an American therapist and Mormon youth counselor who was known for producing books purporting to be the 'real diaries' of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical issues such as drug abuse, Satanism, teenage pregnancy or AIDS, and are presented as cautionary tales. Although Sparks always presented herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office show that in fact she was listed as the sole author for all but two of them.
Sparks began working with teenagers in 1955, after attending the University of California at Los Angeles and Brigham Young University. She has worked as a music therapist at Utah State Mental Hospital and taught continuing education courses at BYU.
Critics have called the precise extent of Sparks' qualifications and experience into question. The editorial credit on some of the diaries published by Sparks identifies her as "Dr Beatrice Sparks, PhD". However, when journalist Aileen Pace Nilsen interviewed Sparks for School Library Journal in 1979, she was unable to find any confirmation of where or when Sparks earned her doctorate. Nilsen also wrote that Sparks was "vague about specifics" when asked about her counseling qualifications and professional experience.
Sparks said that her experience working with troubled adolescents made her want to produce cautionary tales that would keep other teens from falling into the same traps. Her first work, Go Ask Alice, was published under the byline 'Anonymous' in 1971.