Initially advertised as an anonymous, true story of a teenage girl, Go Ask Alice (1971) by Beatrice Sparks is an epistolary novel, or a fictional work structured as a diary. The diary entries chronicle two years of a teen girl’s experience with social acceptance, family relationships, and drugs—primarily marijuana, LSD, and amphetamines. Although Beatrice Sparks initially claimed to be the diary’s editor, considerable evidence suggests that she’s the sole author of the fictional work. Nevertheless, Go Ask Alice has left a profound literary impact, advancing the young adult genre in commercial publishing. An international bestseller, the book is frequently used as an educational supplement, not only as a cautionary tale about drug use but also to explore emotional ups and downs, developing worldviews, rebellious behavior, self-awareness, and family communication.

Note: This guide organizes the diary entries into chapters for clarity. Additionally, while the diarist’s name remains anonymous throughout the work, this guide refers to her as Alice for convenience.

This guide is based on the original 1971 Simon & Schuster edition in digitized e-book format.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of drug use and dependency, sexual assault, graphic violence, and suicidal ideation. Additionally, the source material uses outdated, offensive terms to describe people of color, people with mental health conditions, and LGBTQ+ people. This guide replicates these terms only in direct quotations from the source material.

Plot Summary

The diary entries begin in the early 1970s. Alice never records the location of her permanent address, though she later discusses specific locations she visits. The first several months of diary entries note significant happenings in Alice’s life. She makes a point of explaining gaps, often reporting feeling bored. Alice shares close relationships with her parents, younger siblings, grandparents, and friends. She’s interested in dating and has strong feelings for a boy named Roger. Although she loves her family, she often feels misunderstood and struggles to communicate effectively with her parents. Consequently, writing in her diary feels therapeutic.

Alice feels isolated and morose when her family moves to a different state in the middle of the school year, shortly after her 15th birthday. Her relationship with her parents worsens; she feels jealous of her younger siblings, gains weight, gets poor grades, and feels terrible. Alice’s mother often criticizes her appearance, specifically her hair, adding to her feelings of insufficiency. Her life changes dramatically while staying with her grandparents (Gran and Gramps) for summer vacation. At a party, other kids spike her soda with LSD without her consent. Alice blames herself for not understanding the party’s purpose, feeling unintelligent for lacking awareness. After the party, Alice feels ashamed though curious about other drugs. She attends a few more parties, experiments with different drugs, and loses her virginity. When she sees Roger at the summer’s end, she feels guilty, remembering her previous life plan.

Returning home, Alice makes friends with Chris, a girl from school who works in a trendy boutique. Chris introduces Alice to amphetamines, and the girls relate to each other about feeling belittled by their parents. Chris’s boyfriend, Ted, and his roommate, Richie, supply Alice and Chris with drugs to sell. Alice falls in love with Richie, and her parents approve of him for his clean-cut appearance. Although Alice worries about getting pregnant, she frequently has sex with him. She rethinks her relationship dynamic with Richie, however, after selling LSD to grade school students. When she and Chris walk in on Richie and Ted sleeping together, the girls decide to quit drugs and run away to San Francisco.

Alice flees in the middle of the night, leaving her parents a note. She feels ashamed of her lifestyle and doesn’t want her family to be affected by her actions. Chris and Alice find retail jobs and build close relationships with their employers. They attend a party at Chris’s boss’s apartment, where partygoers smoke marijuana. Alice and Chris begin using drugs again, though they stop after being brutally sexually assaulted. They move closer to Berkeley and decide to open their own boutique. The college students primarily talk about drugs, the war in Vietnam, and resisting the government.

Eventually, homesickness overwhelms both girls, and they return home. Alice’s parents warmly welcome her home, and she realizes how negatively her actions affected her family, particularly her grandparents. She recommits to sobriety. However, her efforts are short-lived; after a month of being hassled for drugs by other students, Alice and Chris smoke marijuana together and resume their relationships with other kids at school who use drugs.

The police catch Alice and Chris smoking together, and Alice’s parents enforce strict rules. While high on amphetamines, Alice impulsively runs away again. She travels to Denver, Colorado; Coos Bay, Oregon; and finally Southern California, where she attends a rally and has sex with men for drugs. During her travels, she experiences much discomfort and violence, and meets many other kids with backgrounds similar to hers. Several die from overdoses, which Alice begins to envy. Alice resolves to become a child psychologist when she’s older to help kids in such situations. She calls her parents, who rush to Southern California. Their reunification is emotional, and Alice realizes how much her family loves her.

Alice no longer has friends at home, and she focuses on her relationships with her family. Alice’s grandfather (Gramps) dies suddenly of a stroke, and Alice has intrusive thoughts about worms and maggots eating his corpse, a symbol of unwanted change. School kids hassle her for drugs again, bullying her when she refuses to supply them or attend parties. Alice spends more time with her family, especially her father, who allows her to study at the university where he works. Alice’s family pays closer attention to her, listening to her when she confides in them and helping when she asks. At the university, Alice meets Joel, a freshman with whom she develops a romantic relationship. Joel treats her respectfully and supports her when she slowly reveals secrets from her past. Her grandmother (Gran) dies several weeks after Gramps, and Joel consoles Alice.

While babysitting for a neighbor, Alice experiences an unpleasant drug trip after unknowingly eating candy coated with LSD. She has significant injuries to her head, hands, and feet, and is placed under observation in a hospital before being moved to a psychiatric institution. There, Alice meets other kids recovering from substance use disorder while receiving treatment to cope with past trauma. The institution separates the kids into two groups for therapy: One group enjoys more privileges for good behavior, echoing the division between “good” and “bad” kids throughout the narrative. She records their stories, still planning to study child psychology. Alice’s parents eventually convince a judge that Alice didn’t consent to using LSD, and she’s released from the psychiatric institution. She goes to New York City with her family, enjoying their time together. Joel visits with Alice upon their return home, and Alice hopes that he’ll propose someday. She practices for a solo performance in an upcoming piano recital.

In the diary’s final entry, Alice explains the importance of communicating with others. She dies from a drug overdose three weeks after her last note.