Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Cover of Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

    The last book that I finished was Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. This book is the actual diary of a fifteen year old girl who suffered from drug addiction. At first, she is accidentally introduced to LSD hidden in a bottle of Coca Cola. Soon after, she was hungry for more, and began to deal, and take more kinds of drugs. Every time she found out what she was doing, she would feel extremely ashamed, and promise herself that she would never take drugs ever again. But, in a matter of time, she would fall right back into the loop again. She also snuck away from home for weeks a time in a few instances. By the end, she was certain she would never use drugs again, and she decided not to keep a diary anymore. However, she died only three weeks after making this decision. Her parents found her body when coming home one night, and no one knows how she died. One theme that I found in this book was insecurity in the girl, and in the people around her.

  In some parts of the book, the subject focused her self consciousness on her weight, and how she looks. For instance, on page 7, October 22, the girl writes, "Scott Lossee asked me to go to the movies Friday. I've lost ten pounds. I'm down to a hundred and fifteen which is all right, but I'd still like to lose another ten pounds. Mom says I don't want to get that thin, but she doesn't know! I do!" This shows an example of pressure for teenage girls to look a certain way so that other people will think better of them, no matter how it affects their health, or wellbeing. Another example is, on page 19, the girl is saying how she is hating that they moved houses because she is not near any of her friends, and she needs to lose weight to gain friends. This is also another example of how teens feel that they need to look good to be liked by their peers. Finally, a third example of this is, when her mother tells her that she can spend the summer at her grandmother's house, she starts on a diet right away because she know that she finally has something to look forward to. In all, the subject feels as though she needs to look a certain way for other people, and so is insecure about how she looks because of that.

    Overall, I think that most of the problems that the girl in Go Ask Alice concentrated around her insecurities. And, a lot of the book had to do with her and her friends being self conscious about how they look. The girl was very strong and brave when she decided that she had had enough with drugs, but that was only when her life would be turning up. As soon as something bad happened to her, though, she would fall right back in to her drug life. This book was very moving because this is what actually happened to an actual girl. It is a window into the real life of a drug user.