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Go Ask Alice

A lot of teenagers take drugs and run away – some never make it back.
This is Alice´s true story...
 

Summary:

Alice, fifteen, lives in an average town in the U.S.A. She is the oldest child of a middle – class family. Alice is good at school and has a lot of friends. But none of them is a real friend with whom she can talk about her problems. Her great love is Roger. Roger doesn´t respond to her love , which causes her to lose fascination about everything. Alice hates her look. She wants to be pretty and slim so she starts on a diet.

The news of moving to another town are wonderful for her and even school is exciting again. Her dad has been invited to become the Dean of Political Science. It´s not hard for her to leave, she only misses the old house and her grandparents. After a magnificent Christmas the family moves into a large old Spanish – type house in their new hometown. At school Alice´s fears of not making friends come true. Her younger brother
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and sister, Tim and Alexandria, soon make friends in the new town while Alice finds no one she can talk to for nearly two months. Finally she gets to know Gerta, a nobody like herself. But Alice´s parents don´t like her.
One day she meets a girl walking home from school. Beth, a Jew, and Alice become very good friends and Alice has someone she can talk to. Alice´s family also like Beth.
In the holidays they have to part. Beth goes to a summer camp for six weeks and Alice spends the summer with her grandparents as she has planned. There Jill invites her to a party. All the kids at Jill´s are friendly and she feels at home with them. They play „Button, Button, Who´s got the Button?“. Alice has no idea what they are speaking of. She just smiles not to appear stupid. All the kids sip their drinks. Suddenly she begins to feel something strange inside herself like a storm and immediately she´s floating into another world. When she comes down again she finds out that 10 of the 14 bottles of coke had LSD in them.

Being turned on is the greatest feeling for Alice even though she knows that she shouldn´t. Alice wants to go home but one night Gramps has a little heart attack so she has to help Gran. She can´t tell her parents the truth why she wants to leave her grandparents. So she must stay.
Yet, she meets Jill several times during her visit and every new time she takes drugs again. At another party of Bill´s Alice loses her virginity. She really feels sorry, because she has always wanted Roger to be the first and only boy in her life. Alice doesn´t dare to tell anybody about that. Only a few days later she meets her even-more-breathtakingly-goodlooking-than-ever Roger and he even asks her out. Alice can´t forgive herself for what she has done, so she takes the next plane home.

Beth comes back from her camp, but she´s hardly the same person and she has met a Jewish boy she´s going steady with. Alice is a little jealous and feels lonely again. One afternoon she meets Chris, a sale assistent in a little boutique, who takes drugs too. Soon she relates better to Chris than she ever has with anyone in her life. Alice also gets to know Chris´s date Ted and his friend Richie, who she falls in love with. Alice and Chris push dope for them until they surprise the boys in their apartment stoned and making love to each other. The homosexual bastards have just used them to get money. So Alice and Chris tell the police about the dealers.
The two girls decide to stay clean and are afraid of Richie and Ted avenging their capture to Alice and Chris. They can think of no other way than cut out and go to San Francisco. On the one hand Alice loves her family and doesn´t want to leave them but on the other hand she doesn´t want to know them what kind of daughter she is.
At first it´s pretty horrible in San Francisco, in their dirty smelling and stifling little one-room apartment without a chance of finding good jobs. Finally Alice begins to work for Mr. Mellani, whose exquisite custom jewelry shop is in the lobby of a luxurious hotel. She adores her new job and Mr. Mellani is like a second family for her. Chris gets a job in the greatest little boutique they have ever seen. Shelia, who looks attractive like a model, is the owner.
Shelia has parties nearly every night and Chris and Alice are always invited. Shelia deals with drugs too and they enjoy it. One evening Shelia´s friend takes turns raping and treating them sadistically. Chris and Alice decide to leave this screwed up scene. With the money they have earned they start their own shop over close to Berkeley. Kids often visit Chris and Alice and tell them about their problems, but the two girls have enough problems with their own lives.
The closer Christmas comes, the more Alice wishes to be at home. Finally both really fly home and for Alice seeing her family again is like reaching heaven.

Alice enjoys living at home and it becomes the most wonderful Christmas she has ever had. The new year she wants to begin as a totally different person and decides to become a social worker when she´s older. But after the holidays school is a nightmare. The other dopers and the kids she has sold drugs to, tease her about her attempts to stop taking drugs and it´s rather hard for her to face their attacks. Soon Alice throws away her good resolutions and smokes dope again with Chris. One night Chris´s house is raided and so Alice´s parents find out about their drug-taking daughter. The girls are on probation and Alice´s mother sends her to a psychologist, which doesn´t help either. During her next high Alice runs away from home again. She hitch-hikes to Denver, wher she shares the place with a couple of kids she has met. Alice doesn´t have any clothes except these she was wearing when she left home. She just lives out of drugs and gets a bad cold. She´s in a really bad condition when she goes into a church from wher she´s sent to an organisation that helps her. They want her to stay a few days and then contact her parents. Also from there Alice knocks off and shares the pad with another girl she meets. Doris, her new friend, is on drugs too and has left home after her stepfather has started having sex with her. For some time Alice even lives in the street but finally she talks to an old priest who calls her Mom and Dad. The next day they come to get her.

From that time Alice seriously wants to get off drugs. She just ignores the dopers at school and after some time they stop teasing her. Also her marks become good and she really loves her new life without drugs. But then, one night, her grandfather has a stroke and dies. Alice´s grandmother is really down and feels lonely so she moves in with Alice´s family. Although Alice as well as the other members of the family miss their grandfather very much and so she tries her best to comfort Gran.
These days Alice meets Joel, a freshman at her Dad´s university, in the library. Joel´s really a sweet guy. From the first time they´ve met, Alice and Joel like each other. Alice´s parents are glad to see their daughter going with such a nice, gentle young man and even invite him over for dinner. Alice´s really clean now and gets to love Joel.
Then the next hit below the belt follows: At night Alice´s grandmother dies in her sleep. Alice is nearly as exhausted and depressed as her mother is. Just as life begins to run normally again Alice´s past catches her up cruelly. When she´s babysitting at the Larsen´s she eats some chocolate covered peanuts into somebody has mixed acid. Without knowing it Alice really takes a lot. While being under the drug´s influence she hallucinates blazing multi-colored worms and maggots crawling on her. When Mrs. Larsen´s neighbour hear Alice screaming, she and the gardener come over to see what´s happening and think Alice has gone insane. They lock her in a small closet, run to check the baby and call the police. Alice injures herself severely as she tries to scratch the rough plaster off the walls to get out and beats her head against the door until she has a brain concussion and a fractured skrull. When she comes to herself again she´s in the State Mental Hospital. Even there she hallucinates the worms and maggots. Some of the kids testify that Alice  has been trying for weeks to sell them LSD and make the police believe that around school Alice is a known user and pusher. So she´s put into a Youth Center. Alice can´t stand it there. All day long it´s just boring and the other patients frighten her. The only one she can talk with is Babbie, a little girl who has even had a more difficult life than Alice has had and for some time she has also been a baby prostitute.
Especially the group therapies and her parents´ visits help Alice not to break down and build up a stronger will to resist drugs.
After an endless time Alice´s parents manage to get her home again. She feels guilty of leaving Babbie but soon forgets because of this glorious, marvellous, incredible day. At last, finally and forever she´s home!
Tim and Alexandria are so glad to see her that Alice really feels rotten for having messed up so badly all these months. Happiness comes up and licks her face and hands.

Everything gets OK again. The whole life seems to be fantastic for Alice. Joel holds out her hopes and she finds some „straight“ friends. Her sixteenth birthday becomes the nicest one she has ever had. Also Joel congratulates her. Shortly after her birthday Alice decides not to keep another diary. She thinks she´s old and mature enough to discuss her problems and thoughts with other people, instead of just another part of herself as her diary, her dearest friend, has been to her.

Alice dies three weeks after her last diary entry. Her parents come home from a movie and find her dead. They call the police and the hospital but there´s nothing they can do. Has it been overdose? A premeditated overdose?
No one knows.
 
 

Characters:

Alice:
She´s the leading character of the book as well as the author.The first time Alice gets drugs is without her knowledge even though it seals her fate. Alice can never really solve the problem. She only runs away but that´s no solution. Again and again her past catches her up. The most important factor why she takes drugs is she herself. She has a weak personality. Also the society she lives in finally leads to drugs. Once she has made friends among the dopers at school, she can´t get out of the vicious circle. She doesn´t dare to speak to anyone about her real problems. Alice doesn´t want to cause any disgrace on her family so she always tries to solve them alone by running away, but this can´t work. Alice often feels ashamed about her acting but she sees drugs as the only way to escape. Her unknowing parents should also feel a bit guilty about her death. They really love their daughter but in Alice´s opinion they aren´t open enough and don´t listen to her to spot her real problems.
In the insane asylum she promises to herself never to take drugs again. It´s uncertain if she has really kept her promise. We´ll never know what has happened before her death that has made her weak again.

Alice´s mother:
She´s the stereotype happy housewife of the middle class. She has three children, who, she thinks are satisfied with their lives and wouldn´t be led into temptation by anything bad. Most of the time she has no idea that Alice is taking drugs to free herself. Alice´s mother always tries to be happy and perhaps this is the reason why she´s not open enough for her daughter. She only wants the best for Alice but she´s too naive to realize the great danger Alice is confronted with. That´s the way Alice sees her mom, her parents. But in fact Alice´s parents support her all the time. They try to help her. But because of Alice never telling her parents the whole truth they simply can´t be open enough. Alice thinks they would handle her problems much more negatively than they really would.
During a period when Alice stays clean they seem to be a happy family. But when Alice takes drugs she gives her parents no chance to lead her back on the right way.

Alice´s father:
He´s quite an important man at his university. Alice respects him far too much to tell him something negative. In fact he´s not as strict and cold as Alice thinks he is. Sometimes she´s really surprised about how nice and lovely he is, but she forgets it too fast.
The problem is that Alice´s father has so much work to do so he has too little time for her daughter to notice her struggles. When he´s at home he´s an understanding father but he, like Alice´s mother, doesn´t know the exact facts about his daughter´s current situation.

Chris:
Alice meets her in a boutique for the first time and they soon make good friends. Chris introduces her to pot. The two girls are very similar. Later they decide to stay clean but they think of no other way than cut out and go to San Francisco so they run away together. Chris and Alice live through very hard times and they share nearly everything. Yet Alice has some things she doesn´t even tell Chris.

Roger:
He´s the only boy Alice really loves, even though he doesn´t feel the same for her. But after she has lost her virginity and after her drug-trips she´s too ashamed to face him again. Alice always compares Roger with her current boyfriend. Although they have never had a real relationship Alice loves him deeply.
 

Tim and Alexandria (Alice´s younger brother and sister):
Alice really loves them. Sometimes they are getting on her nerves. But usually they are good friends although their relationship to Alice is not very close. Both don´t understand what´s going on with their elder sister.

Alice´s grandparents:
They are warm, lovely persons and like Alice but they have no idea of her real personality. When Gramps dies Alice feels a bit guilty because of running away.
As some time later her grandmother dies too Alice is sure that she died because of missing her husband. Alice hopes that one day she´ll love someone the same way her grandparents did.
 
 

Personal Opinion:

I think the book is very realistic and it describes the situation very good.
The book should give the reader an impression of the dangers of drug-using.
I think some reader are frightened because of seeing a girl´s life going down so drastically and a life destroyed by drugs. But there are also kids and adolescents who think to know it better and take drugs although other people tell them how dangerous drugs are.
Alice and thousands of other people don´t realize or don´t want to realize the danger of drugs. They use drugs to escape from their ordinary life and then they are in a vicious circle. Then there´s no way out!

In my opinion the book is very good, because I prefer these realistic books.
The most scaring fact of the book is that this is all true!