Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"Go Ask Alice," the tome so gloriously expounded upon by four-hundred and forty-four readers below, is a fictional account of a teenager's descent into drugs. It is "edited" by Dr. Beatrice Sparks. Now take a moment, Amazon shopper, and do a search for "Beatrice Sparks" under "Books." As you can see, Ms. Sparks knows a quite a few anonymous teenagers, each of them with a different malaise. Whether it's Annie (pregnancy) or Nancy (date rape/AIDS), Jay (drugs/Satanism) or Jennie (pills), or even Sam (gang violence), Ms. Sparks covers it all. At the age of eleven, reading this book was a terrifying gateway into nethers of teenage existence. Now, at the age of nineteen, it has become a relic of the American War On Drugs; an antiquity like Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaigns or the "D.A.R.E." program. Like most anti-drug literature, it's well meaning, but inconsistencies ultimately get the upper hand. "Go Ask Alice" reads like a pulp conspiracy novel, with the subject "tricked" into addiction by her friends (acid in the Cokes at a Party) who will stop at nothing to make sure she keeps taking drugs. The amount of drugs consumed throughout the book would have made Grace Slick nauseous. The climax is equally laughable. David Toma had it right when he said that the most important factor in keeping kids off drugs was the unconditional love and care of a family. Maybe Ms. Sparks should have written a book on that instead. ---- For those who can stomach a truly candid book about drug use, seek out "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs. For those who lack the patience to actually READ a book, watch Soderbergh's "Traffic."