Book Assessment of Go Ask Alice

Book Assessment: Go Ask Alice

1) The most important character in the book is Alice. Her name is not Alice but her real name is never revealed so she is referred to as Alice. She is a lonely, middle class white teenager trying to pull through the long hard years of adolescence. Her life is not too exciting and her friends are dorky and unpopular. One summer day she is invited to mingle with the ?popular? group and she eagerly accepts. Virtually overnight, she is experimenting with drugs and doing things she never would have dreamed of doing. She wants to stop but she finds herself thinking about drugs all of the time. She becomes depressed because of the guilt she is carrying around because of all the sins she is committing. She is also very ashamed because she is infatuated with a boy named Roger but she lost her virginity to a boy named Bill. Her mood swings are drastic and some days Alice is cheerful and motivated to change and the next day she hates everybody in her life and is craving

2) Alice is a lugubrious teenager who gets caught up in the world of drugs. Her diary is her best friend because she never really has a real friend. Go Ask Alice is like watching somebody?s life fall apart at the seams while they simply sit back and watch with you.

3) One symbol in the book is problems of adolescent identity. Throughout the book, Alice is trying to find where she fits in and who really is. She is almost always searching for a best friend, somebody that understands her and someone who will accept her for who she is. She is constantly worried about what people think of her and can never blend in with any group or clique or class. She is perpetually balancing between childhood and adulthood.

Another symbol is the maggots and worms eating dead bodies she is always paranoid about. This connects with her drug use and loneliness. When her grandfather dies (who Alice calls ?Gramps?), Alice is upset and withdraws herself from society. Soon this sadness turns into paranoia about the worms and maggots eating Gramps? dead body underground. She periodically mentions being paranoid about this and sometimes wonders if she is losing control of everything including her own mind. This is associated with the notion that nobody knows what is happening to corpses six feet underground while nobody knows what is happening in her mind and how much she is struggling to keep sane.