Too Much Caffine...

This website: "Curiouser and Curiouser": Fact, Fiction, and the Anonymous Author of Go Ask Alice also supports the argument that Go Ask Alice was not the "Real Diary" of a teenage girl, but a cautionary tale against drug use written mostly by editor Beatrice Sparks.

The link brings up the point that if Sparks had realeased the book as a fiction tale instead of a memior, it wouldn't have sold as well as it did (millions of copies and translated into 16 languages - and a TV movie!) and perhaps the kids who read it in school (schools where it is not banned, of course) wouldn't have had the opportunity to hear the meassage it presents.

The same debate of memior vs. fiction is currently being debated with James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces. This page, run by thesmokinggun.com claims that Frey's book, which was released as a memior is more fiction than the author is admitting. The site claims that Frey unsuccesfully tried to get it published as a work of fiction, but had phenominal success publishing it as a memior.

In my opinion, people are making such a big deal out of the small facts that Frey might have fictionalized, that they are completely missing the amazing story he tells. If you want to scare your kids off drugs today, this is the book to use. He tells of waking up on a plane, not knowing where he's coming from or where he's going, with a giant, bleeding hole in his cheek and missing teeth. He is checked into a rehab center and spends the next few days vomitting up chunks of his stomach and intestine that he has so badly damaged through his extensive drinking and drug use. He describes going to the denstist to have teeth drilled and fixed, all without any sort of pain medication (because he's an addict). Debating whether he ran his car up on the curb and into a police officer as he says, or only really recieved a parking ticket takes away from the amazing message of addiction and recovery that he is trying to present to people.

Perhaps Go Ask Alice was the A Million Little Pieces of it's time. The book has an important message to present to teenagers (how effectively it does that in my opinion is another matter), and placing the focus on who actually authored it diminishes it's ability to be helpful to those who can relate to Alice's drug use.