Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice is the raw and personal diary of Alice, a 15 year old girl in the 1960’s whose life begins just like any other middle-class adolescent; with a loving family and financial stability. It’s only after a long summer that Alice tries to find her self and stumbles, unintentionally, down the path of drugs.

Alice’s recount is tragic, incredibly so, and speaks on behalf of a growing number of drug influenced teenagers that are living (or, not so much) in today’s 21st century. With the ever-increasing number of drug uses and fatalities within our current generation, Go Ask Alice hits close to home for a large number of adolescents, including those who have not had experiences with drugs. Alice’s struggle with finding herself and becoming a young adult is one that we can all relate to.

For me personally, this novel made me feel as if I was a part of the book itself, reading page by page as if this was my story. As the final pages of the book are turned, I felt relief as Alice overcomes the powerful struggle that drugs can bring, only to have that same relief washed swiftly away by Alice’s suffocating reality in the final chapter.
“The subject of this book died three weeks after her decision not to keep another diary”
“One of 50,000 drug related deaths in the US that year”

I couldn’t decide what was more shocking; the fact that Alice, who was so sure of her self-cure and stability was once again taken by the cruel world of drugs, or the statistics, that clearly stated that she was not alone. The statistics shocked me, more so, when I did further research and saw that numbers had risen by as much as 50% in the past 40 years, with a current estimate of 75,000 deaths per year in the US at present. Staggering.

Personally, I find Alice’s death somewhat selfish, as she destroys her family for her own personal addiction. Tearing apart a love that goes beyond the blood they share. Everything Alice does throughout this novel is for her own good, and her own highs, without much thought of how it’s affecting everyone around her. Example; Alice’s mother, who sends a large amount of the book distraught and worried which in turn is effecting her own health. Example; Alice’s friends,