Go Ask Alice

Published 2006 · 213 pages · 58,575 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Young Adult, Coming-of-Age

How hard is Go Ask Alice to read?

Go Ask Alice scores 21 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 18 out of 100
The diarist writes in plain teenage language of the early 1970s, with slang and everyday words. It sits close to Judy Blume's Margaret and Anne Frank's diary in simplicity.
Sentence structure: 20 out of 100
Entries use short, chatty sentences and run-ons that mimic a teen's voice. Nothing demands careful parsing, much like The Diary of a Young Girl.
Abstraction: 22 out of 100
The story stays with concrete events: parties, drugs, runaway trips, hospital stays. The moral message is spelled out rather than argued philosophically.
Information density: 20 out of 100
Short diary entries carry one event or feeling each, so the pace is light and quick. It is closer to Anne Frank's diary than to any dense novel.
Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
The girl states what happens and how she feels directly. The only inference needed is questioning the framing of the diary as authentic.
Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
The diary and the spiked drink carry meaning, but the book signposts its message openly. Its symbolism is thinner than Orwell's allegory in 1984.
Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
The voice is earnest and the book's cautionary stance is plain. Any irony comes from outside the text, in the gap between its claim to be a real diary and its likely invention.
Resolution withholding: 25 out of 100
The diary ends abruptly with an editor's note about the girl's death, which closes the story with a stark, definite finality. Little remains ambiguous beyond the question of authenticity.
Structural complexity: 20 out of 100
Dated diary entries run in linear order, like Anne Frank's diary. The editor's frame adds only a small layer.

How Go Ask Alice is regarded

Go Ask Alice holds a literary regard score of 33 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.