Go Ask Alice (the book)

[Harrie]

Have many of you have read Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous? I have read the book about five times throughout my life, and read it again just in the last few days. It always moved me, and this time was no exception. Maybe even more. It was so sad! And so disturbing. All the more so because, even though that book was written so long ago, I swear I think so many of the same things apply to teenagers now. The peer pressure, the drugs, the sex, all of it. But worst of all to me, was the peer pressure she was under. And the ugliness of the other kids, the downright cruelty. It's so hard to be a teenager in the first place! I could seriously relate to her, the way she wrote, the things she felt, all her fears and all her wishes and everything.

Well, anyway. So, after reading it this time, I decide to look on the net about it, something I'd never done before. And to my shock, I come across all these sites saying it isn't even a true diary! Well, that it's based on a true diary but, it is not exactly what it has been thought to be all these years. Something like...that seven or eight years after the book came out, the editor came out and admitted this. Well, I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. I'd be happy to know it wasn't true, the way it ended, but I feel ripped off now, that it isn't true. I have held this girl dear to my heart for many, many, many years! Then after awhile, I calmed down. Even if it's just "based" on a true girl's life, that doesn't mean it isn't very real, after all. However, I know I disagreed completely with a lot of the comments I read saying that's not how a 15-year-old girl would write. That's bull. That's exactly how I think a 15-year-old girl writes and how she thinks and feels. After all, I am female, and I was 15 once, and when I was, the world surrounding me surely wasn't innocent, either. I couldn't believe those comments. Made me wonder.

[oracle128]

I've not heard of the book, but Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp) is rarely/never wrong...

[DonBB]

Snopes always comes through in the clutch.....

[Harrie]

Thank you, oracle, I read it in entirety. Really still shocks me to find this out.

I still disagree that because some big words were used, and because "some people" think a teenager would not spend as much time on certain subjects and would have spent more on others, that this makes it plainly obvious a teen had no part of the actual writing of this story. I don't believe it. Even in the diary, she talks more than once about how much she reads, almost a book a day. I don't know what kind of noneducated people are running around prevalently nowadays, but the words just aren't that big or unusual for a teen. Of that I can attest with certainty.

Well.

[leroys1000]

White rabbit (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=104230681533682472&q=jefferson+airplane)

[oracle128]

The materials gathered on the internet suggest to me that even if she was "gifted", and did have a writing style and vocabulary as is presented, that it wouldn't have been so prevelant were she using mind-altering drugs.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice) also presents these conundrums:Three factual inconsistencies (as opposed to the general untrue 'feel' of the writing) in the book point towards a fabricated diary —

1. 'Alice' apologizes to her new house in her diary for "the way I felt last night." However, her negative feelings towards the house are recorded two days previously, not one.
2. 'Alice' tells her diary that she had been using drugs, "since July 10 exactly." The July 10 entry is written the morning after she first takes LSD - and thus she had been taking drugs since July 9 exactly. (It could've been a minor error on her part as she recorded it, seeing as it was a while back when she started.)
3. The epilogue tells us that 'Alice' died of a drug overdose, though the only drugs she regularly used (i.e, used more than once for pleasure) and could easily obtain at the position she was in at the end of the book were LSD and marijuana, both of which are virtually impossible to overdose on.

[renegade600]

I've not heard of the book, but Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp) is rarely/never wrong...

never heard of it either. However from the little reading I have done about it a few minutes ago, it could be a true story written in diary fomat.

[Harrie]

I find myself wishing you all had read it.

[black mirror]

I find myself wishing you all had read it.


If it stopped one teenager from going down the wrong path Harrie.. it was worth writing it .. dont you agree:happy:

[Harrie]

I hadn't thought about it that way, black mirror. You are so right. Thank you.

[black mirror]

I hadn't thought about it that way, black mirror. You are so right. Thank you.


On a lighter note ;)
The Secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 (http://www.brainevent.com/be/Writing/reviews/books/20030819/index_html)
The ramblings of an adolescent teenage boy.. very funny Harrie....:D

[Harrie]

I shall put that on my list, for certain! Sounds great!

Hey, that looks like a very cool site. Definitely bookmarked. I love to read reviews by the "regular people," you know? As opposed to professional reviewers.

Thanks again.

[Snurfen]

I find myself wishing you all had read it.

Read it? It's unfolding before my eyes everyday (but with a different ending, I sincerely hope!). Two sixteen year old daughters and one 13 year old daughter.

I find it hard to believe what goes on in their peer group - some parents really should wake up.

[Harrie]

I'm thoroughly confident of a different ending, of course! Wow, Snurfen, you really do have your hands full, don't you? I bet they are really great girls. I'm sure some parents should wake up; perhaps they just don't really want to.

[Snurfen]

Your soooooo right - the amount of parents who blankly deny their children could ever POSSIBLY step out of line - probably one of the major contributing factors to why our society is going down the tubes :-(