Essay/Term paper: Go ask alice

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

Go Ask Alice





This book is actually a real diary, written by a 15 year old American girl who is tossed into the world of drugs. The girl has the "perfect" life but is forced to change from a child to an adult virtually overnight. She develops a crass attitude, and becomes paranoid, all because of her newly found lust for drugs.



It didn't just happen overnight. She started to take sleeping pills and tranquilizers to fall asleep but friends slipped her LSD and from then on she was hooked. She felt insecure and alone, so when the "popular group" invited her to join them she leapt at the chance. She fits right in by being introduced to drugs such as Speed and torpedos. She starts to experiment with more use of drugs and pre-marital sex.



She starts pushing drugs at school for her new boyfriend Ritchie which will give her a rep she won't be able to shake off father on down the road. It turns out though, that Ritchie is gay as she soon finds out, she was used and feels terrible so…..



Feeling her life is depressing, with her parents harping at her about her looks and grades, and her peers ignoring her at her new school, she runs away with a girl a year older than herself, Chris. They go to the city of San Francisco to escape it all. They live in a one bedroom dirty apartment, saving their money until they can open up their own little boutique. They find jobs with wonderful bosses who invite them out. One is a wonderful old man with a large family who accepts them as their own. The other boss is a very wealthy woman who loves to throw parties and lets the girls crash at her place. They think everything is wonderful until one evening they are sitting with her and her boyfriend and they try heroin and then speed and then are brutally raped. They are disgusted with this lifestyle so they head out to start a boutique for themselves.



After a while with the boutique the two are over with it and decide to head home, she calls her mother and is picked up the next evening at the airport by her families warm embrace.



Christmas time has come and she is happy as can be. No more drugs, happy to be with her family and ready to get rid of her old life and on with the new.



Even though she has decided no more drugs, her friends need "connections" and harass her, making simple things such as going to a dance, horrid.



She starts drugs again and the next while is indescribable. She goes through so many situations that many people couldn't even imagine. It's funny how little people actually realize that drugs are very powerful and very addicting. These writings were recorded on single sheets of paper and brown paper bags. There were no dates for them because she didn't know what date it was or when it was. She sleeps on curbs, in churches if she's lucky, she only has the clothing on her back, her period starts and has no Kotex, she has money so she becomes a prostitute so she can get her fix of drugs.



She finally ends up talking to a priest you understands youth. He calls home and her parents are so overwhelmed with love for their daughter, she can't understand how they can still love her, all that she's done…..



She wants to become a physiatrist or maybe a child guidance counselor when she gets out of school. she wants to rectify her life by helping others.



Her dear old grandfather passes away and about a month later, her dear grandmother too. She begins to have terrible nightmares about worms and maggots eating her grandparents bodies, the deaths are making her lose sleep and it's taking a lot more energy to do simple tasks and to concentrate in school. The "druggies" harass her constantly, they put joints in her purse and the are cruel and they tell her that "they will get her back." She is trying hard to keep control but it is very difficult with all of this going on around her.



She meets a wonderful young man whom takes as much an interest in her as she to him. They have wonderful conversations and her parents approve of him too. Things seem great until one day when she is babysitting for a neighbour, she eats chocolate covered peanuts which have been covered in acid. She doesn't notice but goes crazy and hurts herself badly, that along with her background and her two ex-friends saying statements that weren't true, she ends up in an insane asylum.



She begins to talk with the people around her and learns more about the harsh world of drugs, she writes everything down so she can look back on it and understand people better when she becomes a psychiatrist.



She gets out of the hospital about two months or so later and realizes the life she missed. She loves everything, Joel, her family, God, everything. She begins piano lessons again, and starts to hang around with the "right group of kids" and leave the "wrong group" behind. It's hard to shake her past but she doesn't let anything stop her. She and Joel see each other once again, birthday's come and everything is wonderful.



Epilogue:



The subject of this book died three weeks after her decision not to keep another diary.

Her parents came home from a movie and found her dead. The called the police and hospital but there was nothing anyone could do.

Was it an accidental overdose? A premeditated overdose? No one knows, and in some ways that question isn't important. What must be of concern is that she died, and that she was only one of thousands of drug deaths that year.





This diary is brutally truthful and it will make an impact on your life either in the present or the future, there are no words to describe how you feel when you are reading this book. It is a true tale of how seductive drugs are, how innocent everything seems and then it all changes and how she defeated it all, her power reigned, even in her death. This is one of the best books I've ever read. It touches your heart, you feel like you know her, you want to run away, cry, laugh, and scream with her, it compels you, it's superb. It shows you that even the most "perfect" people aren't so perfect after all, everybody has problems. I give it ten out of ten.