Reese’s Review of Go Ask Alice

One of the 100 most challenged books list (bookspot.com)

Exposition:

A fourteen year old teenage girl (who turns 15 just pages into the book) writes to her diary explaining her naïve view on the world and her family after being stood up by the "love of her life".

Conflict:

After moving, she comes back to town to visit her grandparents when she is feeling low. The "cool" crowd, of which she wasn't a part of before, invites her to a party. Unbeknownst to her, the cokes contain acid and she gets her first taste of drugs, which she likes.

Rising Action:

Acid and other drugs become more and more the norm. After clashing with her parents who feel that she is becoming too much of a hippie (and who don't realize she is selling), she runs away, only to find that she tires after a while of the constant drug scene.

Climax:

 When she returns determined to stay straight, she is constantly bombarded by others in the drug scene that see her as a traitor and threaten her and her family. One night, while babysitting, she thinks a gift of chocolate covered peanuts has been left for her and eats them. Unfortunately, they are laced with acid which sends her on a bad trip and police have to be called.

Falling Action:

She finally fights off the bad trip and heals in the insane asylum where she focuses on the privilege of education.

Resolution:

She returns home from the asylum where she had been committed to find that a young man named Joel is waiting for her. She seems determined to return to school and be strong enough to deal with those that set her up originally. In her last diary entry, she decides to no longer keep the diary. The epilogue informs the reader she has committed suicide 3 weeks after her last entry.

Literary Elements:

Sensory detail is especially evident in the diary's descriptions of the acid trips (particularly descriptive is the bad trip which she embarks on that sends her to the asylum). Additionally, there are periodic instances of understatement as the character finds herself dulled to tragic events around her.

Anonymous (1971). Go ask Alice. New York: Simon Pulse.