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Dec 17, 2009

Rachel rated it:

i read this in high school and went "oh my god...i'm never doing acid" and then went " how can anyone pretend this is a real diary?!" and then ate lsd-laced peanuts, locked myself in a closet, pulled out all of my hair and woke up three weeks later in a hospital bed..."what happened?" crap crap crap...this book is crap. plotline:
1. i'm a good girl
2. i'm going to a party...with boys...haha
3. i'll have a beer
4. i might as well try a joint
More...

35 comments like (140 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2010

Laura rated it:

This book is crap on its own. But those of you old enough to remember the latter portion of the 70s might remember that Beatrice Sparks, the "editor" of Go Ask Alice, also "edited" a bunch of other alarmist books aimed at teens, all supposedly taken from teenagers' diaries. One was called "Jay's Journal," and was purportedly about a teen who gets involved with Satanism and eventually commits suicide to escape the horror of it all.

Even as a 12-year-old, h More...

11 comments like (42 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Madison rated it:

It's hard for me to write this review because I don't really know where to begin.

Basically whether you believe this is fiction or not that should not matter. If you believe this story is too far fetched to be true, then I must say that you are absolutely wrong, because my (recovering) drug addicted sister is "Alice", I am the innocent "Alex", and our family is the one that will always love her and always take her back. Stories like this absolutely exist in real li More...

8 comments like (73 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2007

Patricia rated it:

I was never forced to read this when I was younger, so I thought that I'd pick it up and read it now, for a laugh, being as there are days when there is just too much blood in my drug-stream.

7pm 12 Nov 2007

Well, I'm about 12 page into this book and I already hate Alice. Quite a lot, actually. I hope that as I read further, Alice's drug-induced diary entries mark an improvement upon her character.

1pm 16 Nov 2007

Finished the book 3 days ago, an More...

6 comments like (48 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Meredith rated it:

Bwaaah. So disappointing. Some of my co-workers were discussing this book at lunch one day, and I remembered being super curious about it when I was younger, but for some reason never got around to it. Unfortunately for my enjoyment of the book, I did some digging before reading it. I see on Goodreads that the author is not credited as "Anonymous" (as it still is on the cover of the book), but Beatrice Sparks. On the book, Sparks is listed as the editor, but a preface still states it i More...

0 comments like (30 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2007

Rachel rated it:

I first read this book in sixth grade. When I tell people this, they usually look at me in an appalled fashion, and ask if my parents knew I was reading it. And I tell them, yes, my mother knew, before I was even finished with the first entry. I had/ have a tendency to talk openly with my mother, especially upon the topic of books. When she saw that I was reading it, she looked at me a moment, then said something along the lines of: "Rachel, if you weren't such a mature reader/person, I w More...

10 comments like (48 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2011

James rated it:

This infuriating book is the most repugnant piece of reactionary propaganda that I've ever had the misfortune to read. Go Ask Alice is unnecessary proof that sex and drug stories are the best money makers; it helps when they also support a staunchly conservative, traditionalist agenda. The whole book is a fetid lie, and a poorly executed one at that.

OK, now that I've calmed down a little bit, let's actually discuss this "real diary." If there ever was a real diary (which se More...

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Carly rated it:

This book is pretty silly & most likely a work of complete fiction. It was written back when conservatives thought they needed to fictionalize drug abuse in order to frighten teenagers. Luckily, this is a new millenium & most of us know what crack whores look like or have known people whose lives have been ruined by drugs. Most kids read this book at a young age & find it too thrilling to realize it's anti-drug propaganda. If you're not convinced that Go Ask Alice is fiction, read another " More...

5 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Mary rated it:

I read this for the first time in college as part of a reading-intensive young adult lit class, and it was the worst of the many, many books we read. For one girl in the class, it was the only book of the many, many we read that she actually liked, solely because it was the only one she morally approved of (man, how she loathed Weetzie Bat). She went on to become our slacker school's valedictorian. She was a poet and used the word "tapestry" too much in her writing. I think all of this More...

1 comment like (14 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Osho rated it:

Speaking as a psychologist: Lies, damned lies, and politics. My rating reflects my teenage reading of it; even at the time, it was clear to me that it was fictional and was being misrepresented as a memoir/diary. Guess that's why I'm a good psychologist!

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2011

Amy rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2007

Kirk rated it:

When I was a child I used to slip into my mother's paperbacks late at night when no one was looking. This was one of the first books I gobbled up, in part because my babysitters (who would now be in their fifties) had me mystified by this thing called adolescence. In all honesty, I was drawn at eight or nine by Alice's drug use, sex, and profanity. (There's a certain seven-letter compound word that I learned from the book---only back then it was two words). I pretty much thought this was what ha More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2007

Courtney rated it:

I picked this book off the self to read at work as I am determined to familiarize myself with the collection more and because it's a "classic" and on the ALA banned book list.

While reading I often found myself thinking..."What? No 16 year old girl says that. This was obviously a part the editors edited heavily." Then I realized how often I was thinking that. The whole thing struck me as oddly UNrealistic even though it was supposed to be a real account. (And More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Sarah rated it:

My daughter read this book. I was ready to freak out - This book is way too graphic for an 11 year old. I was composing a letter to the middle school librarian who allowed her to check this book out. I was preparing a lecture for Ashley about what is and is not appropriate for a child to read. Then Ashley came to me and started talking about drugs. She started talking about the things that kids say about drugs at school. She told me that she and her best friend had a teary talk about how s More...

2 comments like (23 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2007

Ammy rated it:

this book is so interseting is like so many surprising things happen unexpected .like this one girl has no control over herself shes been taken over by drugs and running away from her difficulties.i really like it because it shows how we complain so much of our everyday lives but what we dont know is anyone around us can be thinking the same . however solving it diferently in a way that can be so dangerous.

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2008

xAnissax rated it:

This book is something every kid should read before high school. The main character is slipped LSD and hooked on drugs. As she becomes an addict, her diary explains her deepest fears and thoughts. The truth in stories can be scary.

3 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2008

Mr. Frade rated it:

This is a sensationalist piece of garbage. A DARE commercial on speed (pun was intended) and I just didn't care about anyone because it was so poorly written.

2 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2008

Debbie rated it:

Though purported to be the real diary of a 15-year-old girl who became addicted to drugs during the 1960's, Go Ask Alice is actually a work of fiction.

The narrator unknowingly takes LSD (acid) at a party and has a great trip. She is instantly addicted and a few weeks later, she is willingly sucking down any and every drug she can get. Come on!

While I am certainly not an advocate of drug use, there is no scientific evidence that LSD is addictive--or marijuana, another More...

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2008

David rated it:

I have very mixed feelings on this book. Initially, I was very impacted by the narrator's ups and downs, and found myself very moved by the emotional, often horrific storyline. It also captured an era for me, that of the late-60's when drugs were the hip thing, and there was less knowledge about how detrimental their effects could be. While I found some of the narrator's voice a little odd, I dismissed it at the time as being of another time-period. If it ever seemed moralizing, I told myse More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 21, 2008

Tortla rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2007

Nick rated it:

I read this book during my junior year of high school. I know now it was actually just a "morality story" written by a woman with no personal experience in drug culture, but when I read it I found it to be very engaging. I was sucked into the story and didn't come away from it with a "drugs are inherently bad" attitude, but neither did I want to go out and try acid. For me it was just a glimpse at another person's experience in another time.

Sometimes fiction works More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2007

Sarah rated it:

This was a title I had to read for my Childhood's books class.

If you haven't read it, it is set up as the diary of a young girl as she experiences the drug culture of the 1970s.

Here's the thing: It could have been really powerful. It wasn't. The first page claims that the diary is authentic and that the names have been changed to protect the others. And I believed this pretense for a while. But it becomes fairly obvious that this is a lie and instead, this "diary" More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Oct 26, 2007

Anne-Marie rated it:

I read this on a weekend church retreat with kids from the youth group I was not a part of or familiar with but forced to join by my parents. I was shy and awkward and those little fuckers kept giving me a hard time about the title of what I was reading. It was such a horrible two days that I still recall the entire experience pretty vividly. I loved this book and, despite the ridicule I put up with, I was grateful for an escape. Go Ask Alice totally scared the shit out of me though and I vowed More...

6 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Chassidy rated it:

I loved this book. I read it, like everyone else in my early teen years and couldn't put it down. It definately sparked my interest in drugs and running away from home to pretend I was grown up. I think every teen goes through that time when no one understands them, you don't know where you are going and wish everyone could just leave you alone. It's funny how different reading a book at such a young age, and then reading it several years later when your grown- can change, especially because yo More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 08, 2011

Kristi rated it:

I read this book in one sitting. Couldn't put it down. It was such a small, rivoting book and the diary format made it a breeze to sail through. If only I could beleive it was from the diary of an actual teenager. It just didn't ring true. The writing seemed too high-functioning and too advanced for a 15-year-old strung out girl. It read as if an adult was pretending to be this person, and the evidence over the past forty years leans toward that. Even so, this was a horrific look at drug More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 15, 2011

Davis rated it:

So far I love this book. It's kept me very interested and never left me with a boring page, even though in the beginning there were very dull entrees into the diary.
This book constantly surprises me. I knew before reading it was over controversy with drugs, sex and the revolutionary 70's, but I didn't realize how much personality would shine through this girl even before all of the mayhem.
Of course this story is teeming with cultural differences that aren't as common today, leading t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2010

Loretta rated it:

Go Ask alice is a tragic story written in diary format by an anonymous author revealing her personal journey of using drugs. The author is a teenager who is initially victimized by being drugged without her knowing. I'm not an expert, but I've heard that an addiction can happen after one time, which is what happens to the girl in this book. It is a true story and documents the (almost) daily accounts of this drug addicted teenage girl's life for one year.

Throughout the diary, she More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 05, 2009

Kelly rated it:

I must have been incredibly naive back in high school when I read this because it scared the pants off me. But what made me not forget it was that she died in the end anyway. That made me incredibly sad. I knew it was poorly written but I figured that was realistic since it was supposedly written by a teen.

yes, I don't usually like moralizing and I don't like deceit but drugs are such an enormous problem with teens that if it helps even one kid stay away from drugs, where's the harm? More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2009

Rosianna rated it:

The way I felt about this book entirely changed once I found out that it wasn't a real diary, which provided insight into how much the background story of a novel affects my enjoyment of it. Does it make it any worse a book? Yes. What struck me the most about the book in the first place was the supposed 15 year old's ability to be honest with her diary - I constantly lie to my own, never trusting it with the truth, or trusting myself with it - so when that need for someone to be honest with it f More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2011

S. Bell rated it:

So I've heard all this stuff about how this is one of those really famous must-read books... and then I just didn't care for it/Alice. Blah. Too dated, perhaps? And the 70s is not really a decade I'm much interested in.

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

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