Episode 163 – Go Ask Alice
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2020
⏱️ 91 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Per the request of our wonderful Patreon patrons, our editor Becca joined us to discuss the anti-drug cautionary tale Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (aka Beatrice Sparks). Reading it in 2020, we’re not sure what’s harder to believe: that this ever deterred anyone from using drugs, or that anyone ever believed it was actually the diary of a human teenager. We’re grateful to our patrons for supporting us, and just as grateful that we’ve never been invited to any parties where someone slipped LSD into our soda.
Readers advisory: Here.
Footnotes: Paul F. Tompkins – “Go Ask Alice”
“The Book That Defined My Teen Anxiety Turned Out to Be a Lie” by Sloane Tanen
“A Queer Reading of Go Ask Alice” by Frankie Thomas
Amazon review of Go Ask Alice by the author of Drugs Make You Un-Smarter
Candy pairing: Becca says any candy that isn’t secretly acid, Kait says pot gummies, Renata says orange yeast rolls.
Coming up next: Bests of 2020.
* Worst Bestsellers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
(But no pressure, we’re also happy if you get these items from your local library or independent bookstore.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the worst bestsellers where we read about the dangers of drugs so you don't have to. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm Renata. |
| 0:19.1 | And I'm Kate. |
| 0:20.2 | And for this episode, we read Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. |
| 0:25.6 | Joining us to discuss this totally true diary of a real teenage human is Becca, a total |
| 0:32.0 | square who read a lot of books about heroin addicts when she was 14. |
| 0:36.3 | Hi, Becca. |
| 0:37.3 | Not saying it's a good thing, but it is a true thing. |
| 0:40.9 | Like this book? |
| 0:44.4 | Becca also is the editor of her podcast and a frequent and beloved guest of the podcast |
| 0:50.7 | in addition to her expertise in fictional heroin addicts. |
| 0:57.8 | God, I feel like there's so much we should say at the top of this episode. |
| 1:01.8 | Okay. |
| 1:02.4 | Well, okay. |
| 1:03.3 | So first of all, if you are a member of our Patreon, one of your Patreon perks is that you get to, once a year, vote in a poll |
| 1:13.7 | on what book we should read and we'll read that book. And so this was this year's, this was this |
| 1:19.6 | year's Patreon choice. Thank you, patrons, for everything, but especially for this book, |
| 1:26.0 | which was goofy as hell. But also, which was goofy as a hell. |
| 1:28.9 | But also, it was goofy as hell, and it also requires some content warnings for, I mean, |
| 1:37.3 | kind of for everything, for drug abuse, for sexual assault, for, I mean, a lot of problematic 70s shit. |
| 1:47.8 | Yeah, a lot of, a lot of, I would say even more so than like drug use and |
| 1:52.3 | drug use itself for very problematic ideas about drug use and recovery. |
... |
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