BOOK REVIEW "Go Ask Alice"
One of the few differences between this writer’s story and my own real life is that I survived to tell about it, and she died from an overdose. In this book titled “Go Ask Alice” the author is anonymous, presumably done so to protect the author’s family. It is her diary, of how she started using drugs and alcohol, and the struggles she went through to try and stop using them, but they ultimately took her life.
From the beginning, we get an idea from the author herself about how she does not feel comfortable in her own skin, which is an issue for today’s girls still. This book was written in 1971 but is still pertinent to what is happening with young girls. From the first pages she describes how insecure she is and unable to be assertive. The theme that kept reoccurring was her saying “I pretended I didn’t care” (Anonymous 2). Instead of being able to confront a situation that was hurtful or embarrassing, this author chose to write it in her diary and then pretend to the rest of the world that everything was ok.
Throughout this book, the author poured her heart out, and it was really sad to read how she never felt like she was pretty enough, thin enough, or smart enough to belong. She treats this diary as the only friend that she can really talk to, and I wonder how many young girls feel this way? Her descriptions of how she felt like she fit in when using was very poignant, and made you understand why someone would want to continue doing it.
This young lady endures moving during high school, gains weight, and wants desperately to fit in some where. So when the kids start calling, even the wrong crowd of kids, it was better than nothing. It never even enters her mind to be mad about getting slipped drugs for the first time without her knowledge. She writes “I’m glad they did it to me” (Anonymous 30) and once again pretends that everything is all right. All of this just to find friends and fit in. We talk about this in class, and how even when the family is good, at this age having friends and being a part of is so important.
It is so easy to see how a young girl could get involved with drugs even coming from a good family. The author refers to this point again and again, even wondering how it could have happened to her after being “from this good and fine and upstanding, loving family” (Anonymous 77). Addiction can happen to anyone, and it is shown in this book how easy it is to happen to even the best of families, not just the ones from the wrong side of town, so to speak.
This author had no intention of her personal diary becoming a book, so her main ideas and emphasis is not so much to get a point across, or even tell a story, as much as it is her revealing her real thoughts and feelings in this diary because she cannot, or does not know how to, talk about what is really going on inside her. In my opinion, her parents had this diary published to show everyone how easy it is to fall into the lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and mental health illness, even when having a supportive family ands no family history of this. How it can take over a young girl’s life, while the family feels helpless to do anything. I believe it was published to help other families cope with these same issues, and maybe help us understand how this could happen. One of the shortcomings of this book is that it offers no real insights into the different avenues that could be used to help treat addiction, which appears to be the main mental health disease in this story. There are ways for parent to step in and do an intervention, but it was obvious to me that her parents had no idea about what to do, or how deeply involved she was with drugs.
This book also reminds us of the very real experiences that young girls face at school, with the opinions of their peers being more important than that of even their families. One of the themes that kept appearing over and over again was about what the kids at school thought about her, and that “It’s terrible not to have a friend” (Anonymous 114). And in the end, she still dies without anyone really understanding her, until they read her diary.
From the beginning, we get an idea from the author herself about how she does not feel comfortable in her own skin, which is an issue for today’s girls still. This book was written in 1971 but is still pertinent to what is happening with young girls. From the first pages she describes how insecure she is and unable to be assertive. The theme that kept reoccurring was her saying “I pretended I didn’t care” (Anonymous 2). Instead of being able to confront a situation that was hurtful or embarrassing, this author chose to write it in her diary and then pretend to the rest of the world that everything was ok.
Throughout this book, the author poured her heart out, and it was really sad to read how she never felt like she was pretty enough, thin enough, or smart enough to belong. She treats this diary as the only friend that she can really talk to, and I wonder how many young girls feel this way? Her descriptions of how she felt like she fit in when using was very poignant, and made you understand why someone would want to continue doing it.
This young lady endures moving during high school, gains weight, and wants desperately to fit in some where. So when the kids start calling, even the wrong crowd of kids, it was better than nothing. It never even enters her mind to be mad about getting slipped drugs for the first time without her knowledge. She writes “I’m glad they did it to me” (Anonymous 30) and once again pretends that everything is all right. All of this just to find friends and fit in. We talk about this in class, and how even when the family is good, at this age having friends and being a part of is so important.
It is so easy to see how a young girl could get involved with drugs even coming from a good family. The author refers to this point again and again, even wondering how it could have happened to her after being “from this good and fine and upstanding, loving family” (Anonymous 77). Addiction can happen to anyone, and it is shown in this book how easy it is to happen to even the best of families, not just the ones from the wrong side of town, so to speak.
This author had no intention of her personal diary becoming a book, so her main ideas and emphasis is not so much to get a point across, or even tell a story, as much as it is her revealing her real thoughts and feelings in this diary because she cannot, or does not know how to, talk about what is really going on inside her. In my opinion, her parents had this diary published to show everyone how easy it is to fall into the lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and mental health illness, even when having a supportive family ands no family history of this. How it can take over a young girl’s life, while the family feels helpless to do anything. I believe it was published to help other families cope with these same issues, and maybe help us understand how this could happen. One of the shortcomings of this book is that it offers no real insights into the different avenues that could be used to help treat addiction, which appears to be the main mental health disease in this story. There are ways for parent to step in and do an intervention, but it was obvious to me that her parents had no idea about what to do, or how deeply involved she was with drugs.
This book also reminds us of the very real experiences that young girls face at school, with the opinions of their peers being more important than that of even their families. One of the themes that kept appearing over and over again was about what the kids at school thought about her, and that “It’s terrible not to have a friend” (Anonymous 114). And in the end, she still dies without anyone really understanding her, until they read her diary.
Comments