I haven't had the patience to read in years. I'm working to gain that patience again by starting simple. Here is the first book I have actually sat down and read in awhile...
This originally controversial book was published in 1971. It is a story about an un-named girl written like the pages in a journal.
One school of thought is that this book is not an actual teenage girl's journal, but rather a book written by an adult, Beatrice Sparks, and is just presented as a journal. It is the opinion of some that the writing style is not that of a 15 year old. Beatrice Sparks is also credited with writing other "journal style" books such as: "It Happened to Nancy" (story of a girl dying of AIDS), "Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager", "Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager" (girl is sexually taken advantage of by a teacher), "Jay's Journal" (a teenage boy who turns to Satan worship and drug use), Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets, Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (eating disorders).
Another school of thought says that Beatrice Sparks is the editor rather than the author and that the book might have been the work of several people including Linda Glovach, who also wrote "Beauty Queen" about a girl who flees her alcoholic mother, becomes a stripper, and ultimately dies of a lost battle with heroin addiction.
The story begins with the girl, whom I will call Alice, for lack of a better name. Alice is a 15 year old girl with the usual teenage girl issues. She's concerned about her grades, her weight, boys, and her friends or lack there of. She seems like a really nice girl....loves her family and tries to do the right thing as often as possible. Then, at a party she is dosed with acid without anyone telling her they've done so.... and so the adventure begins. Alice goes into a downward spiral fairly quickly. She loses her virginity to a boy while she is under the influence and immediately regrets not waiting for the boy she really likes. She runs away from home to San Francisco twice, after which she tries to come home and straighten up. Her battle continues at school where all the druggie kids begin to believe she is a snitch because she wants to get away from drugs. The druggie kids at her school take peer pressure to a whole new level by threatening her and harassing her daily at school. Eventually the enemy kids end up dosing her chocolate covered peanuts with LSD while she is babysitting and she goes into a raging bad trip. Alice locks herself in a closet and, haunted by the recent deaths of her grandparents and the thought of worms and maggots eating them, has a very bad trip where she permanently scars her face and tears her finger tips down to the bone by trying to scratch the worms out of her face. After awhile her parents finally believe that she did not relapse, but the LSD was slipped to her by the enemy kids. At the end of the book, just when you think Alice is about to straighten up and fly right, the book abruptly ends. She feels like a new chapter in her life is beginning and she decides not to write in her journal anymore. Then, the epilogue writes: "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. They called the police and the 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." A shocking end to a story where you really want Alice to succeed.
Anyone who thought the late 60's hippie drug culture lifestyle was "cool" should definitely check this book out. Makes it very "not cool" very quickly. Whether or not it was an actual teenager that wrote this or an adult doesn't matter to me. It's the lessons that are important. I think teenagers relate to stories better if they feel it was the story of a peer, and, therefore, may take it more to heart.
It was a great read. I could definitely relate to the character. I would recommend this book.
For more information on this book and it's impact on the literary world, please check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice
