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Hey #TeamCrypKeepers, Here is another readathon #SpookWeek. All month long hosted by @TheSpineView, tag her, do your points for #Scarathlon23 and tag me too with updates. @TheBookHippie @JenReadsAlot @BarkingMadRead @kezzlou85 @Marmie7 @Rissa1 @aperfectmjk @Bookishgal71 @Nazgul93 @natsahara @BookingitwithSandra

It may be a case of me not the book, since I was having a bad pain day when I started this and having trouble concentrating on anything… But I found the writing dry and the structure jumpy, and around halfway through I realized I just didn‘t care how things wrapped up.

So. In the late 1970s parochial school made us read Go Ask Alice as a scare tactic. My friends and I never believed it was true. However, we did like the read. It didn‘t work as a scare tactic. We knew from our friends in witnessing ourselves, or even some of us experiencing that the drug part that was written, wasn‘t true or accurate. I think Beatrice Sparks was vile and way more insidious then I have realised. What a terrible evil she was. ⬇️

How have I made it this long without reading “Go Ask Alice” by Anonymous? Turns out, Anonymous is actually Beatrice Sparks, who never wanted to be anonymous in the first place, but publishers thought the book would sell better if it was presented as a real diary. They were correct, to put it mildly. This is also the stories of the actual people who inspired the “diaries” written by Sparks, two troubled teens and their families. What a scam.

12-1-22: My November Book Wrap Up part 1! These 3 books were terrific and I gave them 5⭐️.

When I was a young teen in the early 80s, 'Go Ask Alice' blew me away.

Fast forward forty years and 'Unmask Alice' did the same thing.

Turns out the diaries weren't anonymous after all, but were written by a Mormon housewife who went on to publish several other 'diaries' dealing with hot topics such as Satanism and AIDS.

I have to say that, as part of the intended audience, 'Go Ask Alice' scared me away from drug use.

11-3-22: My 110th finished book of 2022! I was completely invested in Go Ask Alice as a young girl/teen. As an adult I‘ve heard the rumors it was not real but this book really breaks it all down. Beatrice Sparks was the creator of Alice and Jay‘s Journal a similar diary concept. To think this woman‘s made up story had such an impact, and is still selling, is unbelievable. Highly recommend this book. It‘s an easy read and so informative.

Gripping exposè on the fraud behind “Go Ask Alice” and other “real diaries” published since the 1970s. Now known to be fake, these novels were marketed as truth which created fear in parents, contributed directly to the Satanic Panic, and had devastating repercussions for a family. Emerson pulls no punches here, nor should he. I read these “diaries” as preteen, so it was so interesting to revisit them as an adult (minus the pearl clutching). 4⭐️

Go Ask Alice always read as fake hyperbole to me, so I was surprised to read it was taken so seriously by most when it came out in 1971. This book chronicles the real-life conniving and damage done by the middle-age mom who wrote it. The truly sad part of this exposé about Beatrice Sparks was the real-life family who gave her the diary she virtually ? fabricated into Jay‘s Journal, her follow up that fed into the satanic panic of the 80s.