January 24th
After you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs....
It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth -- and ultimately her life.
Read her diary.
Enter her world.
You will never forget her.
For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl's harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful -- and as timely -- today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.
Thoughts
This is a "true story" (this point has been contested, but to no avail) written by a young woman. I have to say that I did not enjoy this novel. The prose is very childish. I understand it is written from the point of view of a young woman who did not expect this to ever be read, but the prose was so poor it was painful to read. Sadly, I really couldn't get past that.
Overall
Disturbing, not well written. I did not like it.
Recommended
Parents who force their kids to read things to scare them into being good? I wouldn't particularly recommend this one to anyone.
Any good book critic would be able to move past poorly written literature to discover the nature of what the author was trying to get across. By you not being able to 'get past' her literary skills just shows your inability of truly being a good book critic.
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from - in fact most people I know who have read with the book agree with you that this is a great read.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, when I am critiquing a book, I find the author's literary skills are essential to being a good novel. Grammar, the type of prose, consistency - I require all of things to be in excellent shape. Again, this book is kind of different as it is a young girl's diary. As a discussion of drugs and teenagers, it is probably an excellent book - but read purely as a novel, I still think this book had a long way to go (and I understand this may not be the best approach for this specific novel. But honestly...I really didn't like the book for purely opinionated not factual reasons).
And in any case - I am not a professional book critic, nor will I ever claim to be :-p. This is more of a hobby for me.
I really appreciated your input - I'd love to see what you have to say about other books as well!