"Go Ask Alice" Literary Journal

The novel is entirely written through diary entries of a girl who just turned fiifteen at the beginning of the novel. This allows the read to see the narrators inner most thoughts and feelings. Even in the first fifty pages of the novel, one can see the transformation that takes place in the narrator. She goes from being a self-conscious, lonely fifteen year old to a drug-obessesed teenager whos runs away from home. Through out this you can see how she longs simply for love and attention. She is devastated whenever her crush, Roger, leaves her, and she feels that her family veiws her as worthless, leading to issues with her weight and self-esteam. Then she learns she is moving and is extremly excited for the fresh start, but is still concerned about people in the new town not liking her. Then one day after the move she returns back to her home town and is invited to a party and unknowingly tries LSD after it was given to her in her drink, this signals the beginning of her downward spiral.

She describes the experience as incredable, and can't wait to try more drugs, but most of all it seems that she is just happy that a group of people accepted her. She continues hanging with these people and tries numerous new drugs, and even after her grandfather has a heart attack she continues doing drugs and even loses her virginity, and she finally got the attention from Roger that she was desperate for, but now she isn't as concerned about him, espcially after he goes away to military school, because of her new found curiosity of drugs. In her next relationship with Richie, one can tell she is almost obessed because the two get high every night and she even begins to sell drugs until she realizes the immoralty of it all when she sells to a nine year old boy. She realizes that what she is doing is immoral and then she runs away to San Fransico with Chris, her best friend at the time.