14. Go Ask Alice

14. Go Ask Alice -- Anonymous  (6/1/2011)

I suspect that my expectations were far too high for me to actually enjoy this book.  For a short period of time, I considered myself something of a counter-culturalist -- I liked to fancy that I fought the mainstream. (Granted, this didn't last long and I eventually stopped bothering to try to classify myself into anything.) While I was in this phase, many many people recommended that I read Go Ask Alice, and I'm not 100% sure why -- I never tried drugs or anything like that, and I was far enough beyond 15 when I lost my virginity that I certainly didn't need to read this book to keep me from the "dangers" of sex.  But for some reason, this book was always pushed by my friends -- too bad I just now got around to reading it.

Unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy it.  The story itself was fine I suppose, but I just didn't find the shock factors that shocking -- sure, a 15-year-old falling victim to drug abuse, sexual abandonment, homelessness, etc is terrible, but for pure shock value in a piece of work you absolutely cannot beat the film Requiem For A Dream -- and frankly, I'd rather watch that again and be scared off drugs than try to read Go Ask Alice for the same purpose.  I also did not enjoy the language; I realize the book was first published in the early 70s, but it's written very stiffly and uses a lot of archaic language.  Overall, I just didn't find it to be a very compelling read once I got started -- I finished it because it was short and I was curious about the widely-advertised ending, but that too brought little satisfaction. 

The controversy behind this book is pretty interesting, and I suppose that was also part of why I wanted to read it.  The book's author is anonymous, but it's been suggested for a long time that the book's publisher is actually its author -- minus the suicide/death ending, of course.  I wondered about that as well -- the book is listed on its copyright page as fiction, but whenever I've seen it at the library it's in the non-fiction section, and people talk about it as non-fiction.  If I remember correctly, this is because of the publisher's efforts. The whole situation is rather complicated and I hoped that reading the text would help me understand.  From reading the language and the descriptions of situations, I suspect an older writer -- no fifteen year old would say things like "it pleases me so" when she's happy a friend's visiting or something like that.  But past that, alas, I have no further insights into the author of the book.  Perhaps with a little more research, I could find a better answer.