History YMMV / GoAskAlice

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Nowadays, the book comes off strongly as moralistic, preachy anti-drug material that mostly invokes a seen-it-all-before response from most young people who read it. But when it debuted in the '70s, it was so shocking that it was censored almost immediately (this didn't keep it out of many high school and middle school libraries, and even as ''assigned reading'', even in the Bible Belt). In the early '80s when [[MoralGuardians book-challenging parental groups]] began raising hell at school board meetings, ''Go Ask Alice'' was [[https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/28/us/librarians-say-go-ask-alice-is-censored-most-in-schools.html often #1 or #2 on the list]]. More at the [[https://goaskalicesoloproject.weebly.com/censored.html Go Ask Alice Project]].

** A more modern interpretation of the narrator's drug use leading to her attraction to other girls: the drugs did not cause her to ''become'' gay, but they did ''remove her inhibitions'' about her sexuality at a time when she would have been under immense societal pressure to stay deep in the closet.

* ItWasHisSled: The narrator dies. Understandable due to this book being used as both scare 'em straight material and high school curriculum for years.
* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Comes off strongly as moralistic, preachy anti-drug material nowadays that mostly invokes a seen-it-all-before response from most young people who read it. But when it debuted in the '70s, it was so shocking that it was censored almost immediately (this didn't keep it out of many high school and middle school libraries, and even as ''assigned reading'', even in the bible belt). In the early '80s when [[MoralGuardians book-challenging parental groups]] began raising hell at school board meetings, ''Go Ask Alice'' was [[https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/28/us/librarians-say-go-ask-alice-is-censored-most-in-schools.html often #1 or #2 on the list]]. More at the [[https://goaskalicesoloproject.weebly.com/censored.html Go Ask Alice Project]].
* TearJerker: Both of Carla's reunion with her parents qualify, as well as the deaths of her grandparents. The ending, though abrupt, can also bother you for a long time after reading it.
* ValuesDissonance: Carla's bicuriousity is ''strongly'' implied to be a result of her drug habits. Try getting away with that nowadays.

* {{Narm}}: The book treating marijuana as the hardest, most addictive, most dangerous drug is utterly hilarious to anyone knows anything about how drugs, especially pot, actually work. Especially since the narrator decides to start smoking weed after she's already done LSD, lithium, and ''speed''.

** One plausible interpretation is that her drug use did not cause her to ''become'' LGBT, but it did ''remove her inhibitions'' about her sexuality. After all, this book is set in a time when she would have been under immense societal pressure to stay deep in the closet.

* IAmNotShazam: "Alice" is not the protagonist's name. Officially she's "anonymous," though a quote from a drug dealer's child indicates her name is possibly Carla. [[note]]As she's writing about an unpleasant man who supplies her with heroin in exchange for oral sex -- "another day, another blow job" -- she comments "Everybody is just lying around here like they're dead and Little Jacon is hollering "Mama, Daddy can't come right now. He's humping Carla." How she is writing ''while'', not ''after'', having coitus, only Beatrice Sparks knows.[[note]] There ''is'' a minor character named "Alice"; however, she isn't the protagonist.[[/note]]When the narrator is getting ready for her parents to come and get her, she asks various people what they feel they want, and Alice says she doesn't know if she's running ''to'' something or ''away'' from something, but at heart she wants to go home.[[/note]] The MadeForTVMovie adaptation goes ahead and gives her name as Alice, presumably because ViewersAreMorons.

* IAmNotShazam: "Alice" is not the protagonist's name. Officially she's "anonymous," though a quote from a drug dealer's child indicates her name is possibly Carla. [[note]]As she's writing about an unpleasant man who supplies her with heroin in exchange for oral sex -- "another day, another blow job" -- she comments "Everybody is just lying around here like they're dead and Little Jacon is hollering "Mama, Daddy can't come right now. He's humping Carla." How she is writing ''while'', not ''after'', having coitus, only Beatrice Sparks knows.[[note]] There ''is'' a minor character named "Alice"; however, she isn't the protagonist.[[note]]When the narrator is getting ready for her parents to come and get her, she asks various people what they feel they want, and Alice says she doesn't know if she's running ''to'' something or ''away'' from something, but at heart she wants to go home.[[/note]] The MadeForTVMovie adaptation goes ahead and gives her name as Alice, presumably because ViewersAreMorons.

* AngstWhatAngst: After [[spoiler:Shelia and Rod sadistically rape]] Carla and Chris, Carla quickly moves on with her life. She feels happy and chipper, without any fear, anger, or nightmares that might normally result.
* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: For an ''anti''-drug book, this book makes drugs sound downright magical. Carla devotes pages of detail to her experiences with LSD and marijuana--much more detail than she gives to any other aspect of her life.
* FanonDiscontinuity: Since Carla's relapse and death is shoehorned into a tiny paragraph on the last page of the book, it's easy to pretend it just never happened in order to retain her character development, since the epilogue comes off strongly as a VerySpecialEpisode reminder that DrugsAreBad -- as if the reader couldn't have figured it out already. Moreover, the last sentence of the book (in which the author reminds the viewer how many people die from using drugs) pretty much hammers in the message rather than wrapping up Carla's story in a satisfying way.
* HarsherInHindsight: The entire book, once you know what the epilogue is: Carla's innocence and dreams of a happy future; her love for her parents and siblings; her desperate attempts to get off of drugs.
* ItWasHisSled: Carla dies. Understandable due to this book being used as both scare 'em straight material and high school curriculum for years.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Comes off strongly as moralistic, preachy anti-drug material nowadays that mostly invokes a seen-it-all-before response from most young people who read it. But when it debuted in the '70s, it was so shocking that it was censored almost immediately.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Comes off strongly as moralistic, preachy anti-drug material nowadays that mostly invokes a seen-it-all-before response from most young people who read it. But when it debuted in the 70s, it was so shocking that it was censored almost immediately.
* TearJerker: Both of Carla's reunion with her parents qualify, as well as the deaths of her grandparents. The ending, though abrupt, can also bother you for a long time after reading it.

* BodyHorror: After going clean, one of Carla's old drug associates slips her LSD as revenge, causing Carla to suffer a psychotic episode in which she believes she has died and is being consumed by maggots. Carla has enough reason to shut herself into a closet to protect the children she is babysitting, but then comes to believe she is trapped in a coffin where she ''claws off the ends of her fingers'' while trying to break down the door. Weeks after the incident, she still suffers from hallucinations in which maggots fall from her face and fingertips into the pages of her diary.

* TearJerker: Both of Carla's reunion with her parents qualify, as well as the deaths of her grandparents. The ending, though abrupt, can also bother you for a long time after reading it.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Since Carla's relapse and death is shoehorned into a tiny paragraph on the last page of the book, it's easy to pretend it just never happened in order to retain her character development, since the epilogue comes off strongly as a VerySpecialEpisode reminder that DrugsAreBad -- as if [[ViewersAreMorons the reader couldn't have figured it out already]]. Moreover, the last sentence of the book (in which the author reminds the viewer how many people die from using drugs) pretty much hammers in the message rather than wrapping up Carla's story in a satisfying way.

* UnfortunateImplications: The fact that the bisexual and gay characters are rapists and drug dealers respectively is '''very''' unfortunate.
** And don't forget how '''every''' drug-addict kid that Carla meets comes from broken homes. That's right, kids: your parents get divorced, you go STRAIGHT for the drugs.

* {{Wallbanger}}: The epilogue is one of the biggest literary middle fingers in history. Everything, ''everything'' Carla has done and learned amounts to absolutely nothing and she dies a few weeks after her birthday. The reader might has well have been handed a slip of paper simply saying DrugsAreBad. Sure, it's effective as a GutPunch for high school readers who have this as their curriculum, but it's a massive "fuck you" to anyone who believed in Carla's believable, heartwarming character development.

** And don't forget how '''every''' drug-addict kid that Carla meets comes from broken homes. That's right, kids: your parents get divorced, you go STRAIGHT for the drugs.

** And don't forget how '''every''' drug-addict kid that Carla meets comes from broken homes. That's right, kids: your parents get divorced, you go STRAIGHT for the drugs.

* UnfortunateImplications: The fact that the bisexual and gay characters are rapists and drug dealers respectively is '''very''' unfortunate.