After reading Forever by Judy Blume, I decided to explore a little bit more of the same: 1970’s, teen “Chick Lit.” I was so impressed by the way Forever served some larger purpose, to educate its readers about sexual health. Was this an exception? Or were the authors of 1970s “Chick LIt” really onto something that has somehow been lost in the last 30 years?
Go Ask Alice is packaged as an Anonymous diary that is sold as non-fiction in many stores. Although this work attempts to convince the reader that it is the true story of a 16-year old drug abusing misfit from a warm and loving upper middle class family, it is, in fact, written by Beatrice Sparks: a psychologist and Mormon youth counselor who produced several books purporting to be the “real diaries” of troubled teens.
Beatice uses the diary model (which she claims is influenced byher own case studies of troubled adolescents and portions of actual diaries she received) to highlight the reality and pure terror of issues such as drug abuse, teen-pregnancy, AIDS and even Satanism.
Despite supposedly being written by a 16 year old girl, there is a strong and distinctively moralistic tone that runs throughout the novel. For example:
The main character goes beyond her own issues and speaks to the larger degenderation of relationships and miscommunication between teenagers and their parents in general. This is coupled with the fact that her parents are always right.
More than anything else this book uses scare tactics to lead the reader to believe that using marijuana once will lead you down a road that ends in numerous sexual assaults and ultimately, death. This may have been the ultimate goal for Beatrice Sparks, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This book was extremely popular, selling more than 4 million copies and I seriously question it effect on its readers. If pre-teens are reading this as their first introduction to sex and drugs is this frightening, powerless image really the one that is best to present as truth? Further, unlike Forever, this book does not empower its readers rather leads them to believe that never trying drugs and listening fully and completely to their parents is the only way to salvation. Any departure from normative societal values will likely result in death…as it did for this young girl.
