(Go Ask Alice, 1973)

- Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice 

Last week we talked about the topic of banned books, looking at John Green's 2012 best seller The Fault in Our Stars. This week I wanted to talk about another banned book (though this one's banned for much different reasons).

I can still clearly remember reading this book back when I was 15. My mum recommended it to me, as she herself read it when she was a teenager. Go Ask Alice was published in 1971 by a then anonymous person, later revealed to have been written by Beatrice Sparks, and claimed to have been taken from the actual diary of a 15-year-old girl. It's served as an anti-drug testimonial, and has reached multiple generations of readers. It's such a striking read that I don't doubt that it will continue to reach people for generations to come and, in many ways, Go Ask Alice's subject matter is now more relevant than ever.

Anyway, I should probably tell you what the book is actually about.

Go Ask Alice is the diary of an unnamed 15-year-old girl. In her diary she documents her struggles with everyday teenage issues such as social acceptance, love, sexuality, weight-loss and relating to her parents. This is, until she develops a serious problem with drug addiction.

After being served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game the diarist finds herself hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that takes her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. At first she happily experiments with more drugs and loses her virginity in the process. She feels guilty about her drug use and loss of virginity, but doesn't know to whom she can talk about drugs. She is worried that she may be pregnant. At home, unable to sleep, she receives powerful sleeping medication from her doctor. Her addiction worsens and, with one of her friends, she runs away.

The diarist wants to be seen as "an individual, as a personality, as an entity" and at first believes that getting involved with drugs, and the people she meets on this journey, will allow her to be seen as such. However, as her addiction spins out of control she begins to spiral into depression and dependency. Her observations of the world, and particularly of herself are often disturbing and somewhat frightening, and it becomes clear to her that even though there are elements of her new lifestyle that are fun, that the negative factors outweigh the positive. Unfortunately, by this point she cannot stop. When she looks in the mirror she expects her reflection to "look old and hollow and gray, but [guesses] it's only [her] on the inside that has shriveled and deteriorated". It some ways it uses language and content as a sort of scare factor, to ward young people away from the dangers or drugs.

The same old dumb teachers teaching the same old dumb subjects in the same old dumb school. I seem to be kind of losing interest in everything. At first I thought high school would be fun but it's just dull. Everything's dull. Maybe it's because I'm growing up and life is becoming more blase.

The reason that Go Ask Alice is so effective in delivering it's message to teenagers is that the diarist and her everyday problems are so relatable. She perfectly summarises the way that many teenagers feel, but takes the wrong method to resolve these problems. Her story is the perfect demonstration of why it's important to reach out to others and find better ways to cope with your troubles, than to take a seemingly quick and easy solution. In essence, drugs are bad, kids.


Though it may seem unpleasant to talk about, it's important that we do not turn a blind eye, and in turn navigate our children away from the discussion of drug culture. Although Go Ask Alice is often criticised for it’s confronting nature, the realist and unpleasant portrayals of drug addiction serve as a harsh but effective anti-drug message. It doesn't romanticise the issue but manages to be almost cold and direct, while still being an extremely engaging read. Banning books because of their content is just sweeping the realties of adult life under the rug, when we could be using them to help educate young people on how to properly cope when faced with life's big bad creatures, such as the horrors of addiction. There are messages we can take from books and they can shape us as people, particularly in our younger years, so we want the messages we receive to be the right ones. Go Ask Alice does exactly this.

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.

By this point I think it's pretty safe to assume that most people are familiar with John Green's 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Chapter Books.

- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars 

In spite of it's receiving critical acclaim, there were several unfavourable opinions that began to surface upon it's release. One piece in The Daily Mail criticised it as being "distasteful" and inappropriate for young teens. It stressed that the depictions of illness, depression and sexuality are inappropriate for readers, branding The Fault in Our Stars as being part of the "sick-lit" genre (alongside Jenny Downham's Before I Die, and Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper). The problem with this mindset is that if we don't allow dark themes to be explored in fiction for teens, where do we draw the line? One of the many wonderful things about fiction, and particularly YA fiction, is that it can sensitively explore topics that are otherwise difficult and unpleasant to face. It's an important step in becoming an adult, as it allows you to explore and grow an understanding of more adult themes without having to go through the sadness of losing a loved one or dying yourself to understand them. Turning a blind eye to the realities of the world never works, and fiction written specifically for young people is one of the only places where we can approach these ideals. It is closed-minded and unhealthy to sweep life under the rug.

- John Green 

In America, the popular YA novel was found unsavoury enough as to warrant a ban in Riverside Unified School District middle schools. According to The Press Enterprise, 37 books have been challenged in the district since 1988, but only one - The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier - had been banned until now. The book disappeared from shelves after one parent said that the plot, language and content was inappropriate for young people.

Parent and committee member Julie Boyes, who voted against banning the book, said she thought Green was trying to show what a dying 16-year-old girl might go through, such as being angry and choosing to have sex because she didn’t know if she’d live to 17. However, Arlington principal and committee member Betsy Schmechel questioned whether students could handle reading about terminally ill teens.

- Betsy Schmechel

The issue I take with this is that when did we decide that kids realising their own mortality was a bad thing? Green himself notes this, observing that he is both "happy and sad" about the book ban.

- John Green