WARNING: This review contains more spoilers than normal.
When I first picked up this book, I, like most readers, had heard that this is a true story. Go Ask Alice is marketed as the true diary of a 15 year old girl detailing the destruction of her life after becoming involved with drugs. (Not true, but, more on that later.)
In high school, I kept a journal. A very detailed journal. (I filled 9 large notebooks in 2 years...) Although absolutely nothing in my life relates to or compares to what Alice experienced, I did keep a journal during the same age bracket Alice was writing. Reading this book as if it were her diary was interesting for me, because I did not recognize this as an actual diary of a young teenage girl. Very little of the book focused on typical teenaged drama. She touches on major crushes, glosses over losing her virginity and gives an intensely colorful and detailed description of the wonderful colors and feelings experienced while high on acid... Hmm...
The writer of this 'journal' rarely felt 15 to me. Her writing was too advanced and cohesive to be the true ramblings and musings of a lost (and generally high) 15 year old trying to sort out her problems and her life. It just wasn't realistic. The few times the narrator felt 15 were after being ostracized from her peer groups. She expresses feelings of confusion and loneliness that range true but even those passages were so short as to almost be an afterthought. I read this believing it to be true, but was confused more than once and had to really stop to think about it. No 15 year old I know writes or talks like this.
(I am about to SPOIL the ENDING. You have been warned.) Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this novel was the ending. It leaves you with a feeling of hopelessness. Rather than being a triumphal story about a young girl overcoming her addictions, or a cautionary tale about a life of excess, it is a tale to those addicted to drugs that there is no hope for you. The end will never come, and you will be a user until you die no matter how hard you try to get away from it. Alice has got her life back on track. She is clean, living with her parents and she even has a new boyfriend who knows her past and accepts her for who and how she is. Everything seems to be going so well for her. It seems so hopeful and wonderful. So what happens? In an 'afternote' we are told that 3 weeks after Alice wrote the last page in her diary (remember, she's clean now) she ODs and DIES! Really?! She cleans herself up so that she can die in the end?! Sigh...
Okay. Now that I've told you why I didn't love this book, I should tell you that I did like it. It made me sad. It broke my heart. Although it wasn't always delivered in a perfectly believable manner, the situations Alice discovered herself in were traumatic and portrayed quite well. If nothing else, this book made me feel. For the most part, I was able to ignore the parts of the story that didn't ring perfectly true until I had finished the read. It's a short book, and one that I would say is definitely worth the read. Even though some of the descriptions and the writing itself isn't always on the level a 15 year old would use, the language of emotion was. When Alice did speak about her emotions, I found myself easily believing the sincerity of the narrator's emotions, especially when feeling lost, lonely and homesick.
So, although overall I DID enjoy this book, and I DO recommend it, I am going to warn you now — This book is a work of fiction, no matter what you have heard otherwise. Check out snopes.com for the specifics about this book. And, read the copyright page! It clearly states that this book is a work of fiction. My recommendation to you — Read this book knowing that it is NOT really the anonymous diary of a teenager addicted to drugs and is instead someone's story of what could happen to you if you find yourself mixed up with drugs. It's a horrifying tale that doesn't need to be marketed as non-fiction to accomplish it's goal. I would have enjoyed this book much more had I know beforehand that it wasn't really true.