Reading Log: Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice is in the format of diary entries from a fifteen-year-old drug user which takes place over a one year time span. Within this year, the narrator goes through an emotional roller coaster beginning with the night her soda was laced with acid. Unsure at first what had happened to her, she is intrigued by the feeling and soon takes on the challenge of experimenting with any drug she can get her hands on. The diction is somewhat immature as are her decisions which becomes redundant and a little annoying. After a tough incident relating to her drug usage, she runs away. Upon returning she vows to never fall victim to drug's evil grip, but unfortunately lets it happen, and runs away once again. This time, returning is different, she vows once again not to get caught up in drugs and uses all of her strength not to. 

Just as she is starting to improve her life, her beloved grandfather died and soon after her grandmother died as well. Raging with emotions she confides in her family and new friend, Joel. Her good intentions and maturity become stronger. Although she is improving, her old "friends" (the drug users) pin her and bully her for becoming "pure polly." She then realizes that while she was a user and a pusher, the people she hung around who were doing the same thing, were never really her friends.They bully her and eventually give her chocolate covered peanuts coated with LSD. She unknowingly eats them and has a mental breakdown while on the trip. After her morbid wounds slightly heal, doctors send her to an insane asylum. She spends a short amount of time there before she proves she is fine. When she is released, her character expresses full maturity and life seems to be going really well. She is really happy with how her life is and is disgusted at the thought of any type of drug. The narrator says that her diary is the only thing that kept her sane and even alive during the rough times in her life, but decides to no longer keep one. The epilogue states that only three-weeks after her decision to not keep another diary, she was found dead at home by her parents. It is uncertain how, but it is certain that it was due to drugs.

Going on the journey through the life a drug user was hard to take at times. If she could only realize the near perfect life and loving family she was destroying with her decisions, would it have made her stop sooner than later? She became an entirely different person while on drugs. They took her to some scary places, nearly on the verge of death at several different times. If this doesn't make the reader want to never get involved in drugs, I don't know what will.

Pages read this week: 159       Pages read this semester: 1624