Customer Reviews

Go Ask Alice

5 star:		(664)
4 star:		(128)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(48)

 

 

In this book you will find wonderful reading for a teenager and a feeling of skepticism for an adult. The story itself is very engaging and the book can easily be read in one sitting. It is a spectacular blend of teen angst combined with the choosing of a wrong path. The influence of this book has been grand for it has been widely read in high schools in the last three decades. The veracity of the story is questionable and my opinion is that this book has been exaggerated by a committee of editors and is but a shadow of the real journal; if there ever was one. The latter does not make the book least entertaining so I therefore highly recommend the reading of this book.

This book is one of the best book Ive ever read. I've never took an interest in reading until my sister told me about the book, once I opened it I couldn't stop reading, I read the book in 2 days. For all the critics that think it's not a real story they just made it up ect... The book obviously wasn't written in the 2000's, drug use now is way different then back then, just because you're a drug user and your story isnt close to what was written doesnt mean it's not true.
The book overall is amazing and I think everyone should at least take a look at it.

this is the diary of an anonymous girl and her struggle with drugs and addiction. as chance would have it i read it sometime after i watched that movie thirteen, which is supposedly also true, and that was kind of similar so i guess the book had less of an impact on me than it would have if i'd read it without any preparation. it was still a good read though. as you would expect from reading a diary, it did a a good job making the story realistic, though i suppose knowing this is based on an actual diary helped with that, though how much of this diary is fact is up for debate...

problems i had with this book is how little it went into the drug issue. drugs in general is a very complicated topic and i thought that this book simplified drug addiction ridiculously. since this book is aimed for teen audiences and as such the issue should be fleshed out a bit more... this book just seemed to perpetuate the boogeyman. don't get me wrong, drugs can be scary things and can really mess up someone's life, but at the same time nothing is so childishly black and white.

also, the heroine of this book had little to no backbone. she's dangerously ignorant and too eager to please... so basically she brought this upon herself. at some point when your life is flushing itself down the drain you would realize this, and at points in the novel you can tell she does, she just can't stop 'the outside world' from destroying her. i actually find it kind of interesting that as a society we celebrate novels like this, of complete destruction of the self. i enjoy this kind of story very much when the destruction is intentional, but in this instance the girl just float along on the current she was caught up in. this kind of bothers me, but at the same time... meh. because for myself it's just slightly annoying, but for some young girl who has been sheltered, this would be seriously disturbing... and it would be harder, i believe, for someone at that age to pick up on the fact that the girl didn't exercise her will... that drugs is a choice like everything else.

when i look at factors like these, you have to begin to wonder at the motivation of the authors, yes plural. this book was based on a real diary... based on, meaning some or even most of it is fiction. and in a book store you will find this in the fiction section. this book, and books like this, are mean to instil fear that comes from the ignorance that surrounds drugs. perpetuates the stereotype. as i say, i do not condone drug abuse, but neither to i approve of misinformation for the purpose of perpetuating fear and ignorance.

it was a decent fiction piece though.

This is about a young girl and her tragic experiences with drugs. It teaches some helpful morals. The 'editor' claims that this a real life diary, but both internal and external evidence shows this is more likely a fabrication. I'm sure, though, that it wouldn't be too hard to find a real life situation that turned out just as tragic. Judged as a work of fiction, this book contains a rather weak ending (the conclusion depends too much on inference). It is also rather "graphic" for typical moralistic fiction.

Usually I dont go for books likethis, but i read this one anyways and i loved it! I coulndt put it down! IT was an excellent read and I would suggest it to anyone who wants a good book to read on a cold day! I was able to relate to Alice's emotions and it is very well written!

This is a moving and thought-provoking look into the mind of a young girl who is gleeful to lose three pounds and angst-ridden when she eats french fries, and, in a perfect period touch, who confides her plans for a yearbook autograph party:

"I'm going to wear my new white pants suit, and I have to go now and wash my hair and put it up. It's really getting long, long, long, but if I put it up on orange juice cans I can make it have just the right amount of body and a nice large curl on the bottom. I hope we have enough cans--we've got to! We've simply got to!"

Much later in the book, of course, you'll get passages like the following, written when "Alice" was supposedly in a mental hospital:

"I can't close my eyes because the worms are still crawling on me. They are eating me. They are crawling in my nose and gnawing in my mouth and oh God... I've got to get you back in your case because the maggots are crawling off my bleeding writhing hands into your pages. I will lock you in. You will be safe."

Obviously, it has lost none of its provocative flavor or shock value.

And yet, despite all its sensationalism, this was an important book for me. God knows there weren't a lot of kids my age who could have enjoyed musing with me about it all.

"Goddamned stupid people," Alice would say, "I'd like to shove life down all their throats and then maybe they'd understand what it's all about."

And that's what I read her for, because you weren't going to get that clarity from Caddie Woodlawn or Ramona the Pest or even, God help her, Anne Frank--though I knew and loved them all.

Of course she was flawed, my Alice. She was stupid enough to mess around with too much acid, not to mention heroin. And then she could utter such patent idiocy as the following, about the guy for whom she's dealing at the high school and junior high:

"Richie is so good, good, good to me and sex with him is like lightning and rainbows and springtime.... He's going into medicine, and I have to help him any way I can. It's going to be a long hard pull but we'll make it.... I think I won't go on to college. Dad will just curl up and die, but it's more important to me to work and help Rich. As soon as I'm out of high school I'll get a full time job and we'll settle down...."

Even at eight I knew better than that, but of course Alice didn't grow up in a community of single mothers and boyfriends and step dads and the child support checks that never came. I could have sat her down with my mom and some pals for a cup of coffee and knocked that lunacy right out of her head in about fifteen minutes, but poor Alice had "straight" parents, so she didn't know better and I had to cut her some slack.

Still today, she's the big sister I never had, though she was probably the pastiche of a snarky Williams guy at Prentice-Hall in real life, patched together from a few issues of Seventeen and some chick he sat next to at a Jefferson Airplane concert. I don't care. Alice is family--even if she doesn't live here anymore. Great book! But try it for yourself! Pick up a copy. Another book I need to recommend -- very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining, somewhat subversive little novel I can't stop thinking about.

This is a moving and thought-provoking look into the mind of a young girl who is gleeful to lose three pounds and angst-ridden when she eats french fries, and, in a perfect period touch, who confides her plans for a yearbook autograph party:

"I'm going to wear my new white pants suit, and I have to go now and wash my hair and put it up. It's really getting long, long, long, but if I put it up on orange juice cans I can make it have just the right amount of body and a nice large curl on the bottom. I hope we have enough cans--we've got to! We've simply got to!"

Much later in the book, of course, you'll get passages like the following, written when "Alice" was supposedly in a mental hospital:

"I can't close my eyes because the worms are still crawling on me. They are eating me. They are crawling in my nose and gnawing in my mouth and oh God... I've got to get you back in your case because the maggots are crawling off my bleeding writhing hands into your pages. I will lock you in. You will be safe."

Obviously, it has lost none of its provocative flavor or shock value.

And yet, despite all its sensationalism, this was an important book for me. God knows there weren't a lot of kids my age who could have enjoyed musing with me about it all.

"Goddamned stupid people," Alice would say, "I'd like to shove life down all their throats and then maybe they'd understand what it's all about."

And that's what I read her for, because you weren't going to get that clarity from Caddie Woodlawn or Ramona the Pest or even, God help her, Anne Frank--though I knew and loved them all.

Of course she was flawed, my Alice. She was stupid enough to mess around with too much acid, not to mention heroin. And then she could utter such patent idiocy as the following, about the guy for whom she's dealing at the high school and junior high:

"Richie is so good, good, good to me and sex with him is like lightning and rainbows and springtime.... He's going into medicine, and I have to help him any way I can. It's going to be a long hard pull but we'll make it.... I think I won't go on to college. Dad will just curl up and die, but it's more important to me to work and help Rich. As soon as I'm out of high school I'll get a full time job and we'll settle down...."

Even at eight I knew better than that, but of course Alice didn't grow up in a community of single mothers and boyfriends and step dads and the child support checks that never came. I could have sat her down with my mom and some pals for a cup of coffee and knocked that lunacy right out of her head in about fifteen minutes, but poor Alice had "straight" parents, so she didn't know better and I had to cut her some slack.

Still today, she's the big sister I never had, though she was probably the pastiche of a snarky Williams guy at Prentice-Hall in real life, patched together from a few issues of Seventeen and some chick he sat next to at a Jefferson Airplane concert. I don't care. Alice is family--even if she doesn't live here anymore. Great book! But try it for yourself! Pick up a copy. Another book I need to recommend -- very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining, somewhat subversive little novel I can't stop thinking about.

Go ask allice is an amazing book about a normal smart girl enjoing her life until she get's invited to a party and they play a game called button button. she had LSD! a very bad drug. she then got hooked on pot , uppers , downers , LSD, E and many more! she then learns that drugs are no use for her and they arne just messing up her life! her life then get's much better until you find the unhappily ending! read this book because you will never forget alice! after i read this book i cried and i have never cried about a book before! i felt like i knew her or she was a friend.

I could understand perhaps not liking the WAY this book was written, but how could anyone not feel sorry for the main character and appreciate what she went through? This book is a must read for anyone interested in how the human mind works, child abuse, addiction, and all that goes with those areas. If you liked "I never Promised You a Rose Garden" or McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" you'll like this one.

I can't imagine how anyone could read this book and not love it. I think it could only be a man who wouldn't like this book. I still have my mom's copy of this book from when she was a teenager. It has been passed from one girl to another through two generations and when my daughter is old enough, she'll read it too. The book is wonderful insight on how a young woman of the time could feel inside. How drugs could take over a girl from the right side of the tracks and how the parents never even really noticed. This book used to be required reading in most high schools and I think it still should be.