obsessiveanddepressive

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Go Ask Alice

Review/Summary of the book and movie Go Ask Alice.

Tw: drugs, sex, SH, r@pe, SA, su!c!de, death

I wouldn’t describe Go Ask Alice as an easy read. It is quite short so it’s quick but it’s no beach read. I was intrigued by the description which is along the lines of this: This is the diary of a teenage drug addict. She was unknowingly given LSD when she was 15 and from there she spiraled into a world of sex and drugs. It was published in 1971 and set in the late 60s. I figured considering the time in which it was written the subjects the book tackles would be too taboo to see the light of day especially in a bestselling book. I was sorely mistaken, though. This book is not censored and doesn’t hold back. Now I’m going to start talking about the book and movie, so if you don’t want spoilers stop reading! I do recommend this book just make sure to keep the many TWs in mind and take care of yourself <3 The movie is also pretty good especially considering it came out in 1973. You might recognize Andy Griffith as the Priest and William Shatner as Alice’s dad, Sam.

Now into the book... I’m not even sure where to start. At times reading this where I felt my heart being tugged and sick for the main character. Before I go further, I should mention that that the book is NOT an actual diary, it’s just written as one. Also, the main character, the one “writing the diary,” is never named. In the movie she is given the name Alice because of the title. However, the title was actually taken from lyrics of the song “White Rabbit” by Grace Slick. The song talks about drugs using the classic psychedelic story Alice in Wonderland, but we don’t know if the main character’s name is Alice or not, but for the sake of this post I’m going to assume that it is. Alice goes through many ups and downs throughout this story and every time she would relapse it would hurt my heart. The diary starts before she was given LSD, so you get to know the drug free, or as they say in the book “straight,” Alice. She’s very endearing and I immediately related to and loved her. You spend some time getting to know this version of her and even follow her through a really hard move and see her finally make some friends in her new town. Since we got to know her before drugs it made it that much harder to see her fall so deep into the life that she does. We see Alice do or can imagine that she has done just about every drug imaginable. Even though she’s let take drugs take over her life, she kept her heart. She was pushing drugs for her boyfriend, Richie, when she met up with a grade schooler. After that she refused to push to kids that young. She and her best friend Chris were doing their boyfriends’ bidding until they walked in on the two boys sleeping together. This really surprised me due to the time. They did include it in the movie but it’s a little glossed over and unclear what’s going on. It actually looks like Richie is in bed with a girl instead of Chris’s boyfriend, but then when Richie comes to the door to see who was making the noise, it was Alice, but he didn’t see her, Chris’s boyfriend appears shirtless behind him. After this event Alice turned in Richie and she and Chris skipped town in fear that the boys would come after them. This is when things take the worst turn. The girls were barely scraping by and relying on drugs to keep them going. Chris’s boss Shelia provided them with drugs, but we later found out that Shelia and her boyfriend were taking turns assaulting and raping the girls when they were under the influence. The movie very much glosses over it but if you’re perceptive or have read the book, you know what’s going on. One thing that the movie or book doesn’t sugar coat is Alice going to the mental hospital. However, the movie does leave out the character Babbie. Finally, at the end Alice is clean and doing very well for herself and decides that she has outgrown keeping a diary and stops writing. Three weeks later she dies because of an overdose. I felt my heart drop to my stomach when I read that. I know that if she ended up being fine then it wouldn’t be as much a cautionary tale, but you want so badly for Alice to be okay. It was very unsettling and sad and really left me thinking.

Once again, I really do recommend this book and movie as long as you think you won’t be affected by the TWs above. My next read is Paper Towns by John Green and I most likely will have some notes on that one. That book is also a movie so I’ll watch it and write something like this about that one! Love you mean it and take care of yourself! <3

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Upcoming fanfic

I have so many ideas for fanfiction I’m just waiting to write them until I have my own laptop I don’t want to risk someone seeing it lmao. Stay tuned <3

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One of Us Is Next annotations

These are my annotations on One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus. This is the sequel to One of Us Is Lying. It’s mostly predictions with some breakdowns and whatnot. Spoilers do lie ahead so be warned. I really recommend you read this book, it’s a great one. 

Tw: mentions of death, murder, suicide, and alcohol

Chapter 16

Page 208-209

Prediction

All of our main characters (Knox, Maeve, and Phoebe) have all blocked Unknown. There’s no way of knowing when/if texts are being sent out and what they are. Brandon was sent a text, took the dare�� and killed himself. Of course dying wasn’t the dare, something had clearly gone wrong. Sean probably did punch Knox but not to save him. 

We are set up for Brandon’s death in a very smart and satisfying way from the standpoint of a writer. We immediately were introduced to his connection with Phoebe setting the stakes for his character from the perspective of the reader. He is important but you won’t get attached to him simply because you won’t get the opportunity to. Not to mention he’s a typical high school jerk, which I found disappointing because I am a sucker for the popular guy x unpopular girl trope. We are further prepared for his death after he assaults Phoebe. This takes him from irritating and cocky to straight up horrible. As readers we are now fully detached from this character and hate him more than we already might have. Therefore, when he dies we are not likely to feel any remorse. Shocked, yes, but not really sad. If the assault hadn’t happened, I believe, readers would be more affected by Brandon’s death. “Sure he was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to die.” By adding the scene in Phoebe’s apartment we were pushed over the edge from annoyed by him to hating Brandon. In this way we were able to quickly accept Brandon’s death and move on and start focusing on the mystery of it all. This is further pushed by making his parents (his dad mainly) appear on multiple news outlets pointing fingers instead of showing true remorse for the loss of their son. Brandon is also an only child as Knox says in Chapter 16, so there aren’t any siblings mourning his death. We don’t even feel bad for the Weber family since we don’t see any emotion from them and what we do see is entitled and, quite frankly, inappropriate. The reader has no emotion tied to Brandon’s death, but it is shocking, making it impactful in just the right way to move the story along. 

Page 197 

Prediction: I think it’s safe to infer that “Bayview2020” and “Darkestmind” are involved in the Bayview Truth or Dare game. Up until this point we are led to believe that “Darkestmind” is the mastermind, but this Reddit thread we are shown on page 197 makes me think that it was “Bayview2020” and once things went wrong they ditched and left their accomplice to pick up the pieces.

Prediction

Page 212

Quite the obvious prediction but due to what we know of Brandon after hearing Knox’s parents conversation on page 212 it is safe to assume that Brandon has had some sort of sexual assault lawsuit against him in the past. 

Prediction Intense Guy is Derek, Emma’s ex boyfriend. 

I think Meave’s truth was the perfect truth to reveal about her. All three of our main characters have been humiliated at this point. However, they have all not been presented with a Truth or Dare text. Knox was never a part of the game, but he still had a secret revealed about him disguised as Maeve’s. Now all three of the storytellers have personal stakes in Unknown’s game without using up more time to give Knox an individual text. I also think given Maeve’s character that is the perfect truth to reveal because it easily tore Knox and Maeve apart. She cares a lot about Knox especially since he was kind of her first/only friend that wasn’t Bronwyn’s. It was also the worst time to potentially end their friendship due to her suspected relapse. While Unknown had no way of knowing about that at the time, it adds another level of sadness and evilness that this game brought to Bayview High School.

If Into the Woods is referred to as a play one more time I’m going to scream. It is talked about multiple times throughout the book by multiple people, some of which are theatre people and every time it is called a play. It’s a MUSICAL! (Unintentional Something Rotten reference) Also Jack isn’t the lead the Baker is. I love Karen McManus’s writing but the feral theatre kid is coming out of me. 

Prediction

Page 262

I think that the person who covered the bathroom graffiti about Phoebe on page 262 was Jules. I think it’s very possible that we will see a Jules redemption arc and she will help our trio put together some of the missing pieces surrounding Brandon’s death. However, I think it would be extremely interesting and less obvious to get a Monica redemption arc and she ends up playing that role for us. She could possibly be annoyed or feeling left out since Jules and Sean are now a “trauma bonded” couple, as Jules would call it. I would prefer a Monica arc, but think Jules is more probable. I would definitely say one of them is going to play a part in filling the gaps that Knox can’t and Sean probably won’t.

Prediction

Is Phoebe Bayview2020? If she is, I don't think that she’s Unknown. However, I’m not sure that it’s DarkestMind either.

Prediction

Kind of going back on my previous theory. This is assuming that Darkestmind is Unknown and Phoebe is Bayview2020. What if Unknown aka Darkestmind unknowingly exposed Bayview2020. Phoebe then reveals her identity and they struck up some sort of deal the Phoebe didn’t hold up her end of. But why is Phoebe on the “Revenge is Mine” forum anyway? I know this theory is a little confusing it makes more sense in my head.

Prediction

I don’t know how much even I believe this one, but what if Sean is Unknown and that’s why Phoebe was the first target? Jules pretty early on had seemed to sort of been getting closer to Monica. What if Sean had already started using Jules for information and got that tip about Phoebe? Even more perfect considering she and Brandon were hooking up. Following the assumption Brandon’s death was intentional and Sean had something to do with it he obviously had something out for Brandon. Going after Phoebe was just another small hit he could take on Brandon. Jules claimed to not know about Phoebe and Derek but let’s be honest it happened at her house. She could’ve walked in on them, or had security cameras, or whatever else. Jules was hurt that Phoebe didn’t tell her and that’s why she so eagerly gave up that information about her “best friend.” He then roped others into that gameto make it not seem directly targeted at Brandon, then included himself to take him off the suspect list. 

Prediction

Pg. 312

Bayview2020 is Emma is (maybe) Unknown. Emma had reason to hate Brandon since it was him who messed with the equipment that ended up killing her father. She didn’t start drinking until after Brandon’s death. It could be guilt that’s driving her to drink like this, since she never has before. She might’ve used a different name to Darkestmind on Reddit because obviously you wouldn’t want a stranger that’s likely crazy to know your real name. If she is Unknown then she somehow already knew about Phoebe and Derek and wanting to get revenge. Phoebe was someone she could easily pretend to be since they’re sisters, so she told Darkestmind aka Jared that she was Phoebe.

These are my annotations on One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus. This is the sequel to One of Us Is Lying. It’s mostly predictions with some breakdowns and whatnot. Spoilers do lie ahead so be warned. I really recommend you read this book, it’s a great one. 

Tw: mentions of death, murder, suicide, and alcohol

Chapter 16

Page 208-209

Prediction

All of our main characters (Knox, Maeve, and Phoebe) have all blocked Unknown. There’s no way of knowing when/if texts are being sent out and what they are. Brandon was sent a text, took the dare… and killed himself. Of course dying wasn’t the dare, something had clearly gone wrong. Sean probably did punch Knox but not to save him. 

We are set up for Brandon’s death in a very smart and satisfying way from the standpoint of a writer. We immediately were introduced to his connection with Phoebe setting the stakes for his character from the perspective of the reader. He is important but you won’t get attached to him simply because you won’t get the opportunity to. Not to mention he’s a typical high school jerk, which I found disappointing because I am a sucker for the popular guy x unpopular girl trope. We are further prepared for his death after he assaults Phoebe. This takes him from irritating and cocky to straight up horrible. As readers we are now fully detached from this character and hate him more than we already might have. Therefore, when he dies we are not likely to feel any remorse. Shocked, yes, but not really sad. If the assault hadn’t happened, I believe, readers would be more affected by Brandon’s death. “Sure he was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to die.” By adding the scene in Phoebe’s apartment we were pushed over the edge from annoyed by him to hating Brandon. In this way we were able to quickly accept Brandon’s death and move on and start focusing on the mystery of it all. This is further pushed by making his parents (his dad mainly) appear on multiple news outlets pointing fingers instead of showing true remorse for the loss of their son. Brandon is also an only child as Knox says in Chapter 16, so there aren’t any siblings mourning his death. We don’t even feel bad for the Weber family since we don’t see any emotion from them and what we do see is entitled and, quite frankly, inappropriate. The reader has no emotion tied to Brandon’s death, but it is shocking, making it impactful in just the right way to move the story along. 

Page 197 

Prediction: I think it’s safe to infer that “Bayview2020” and “Darkestmind” are involved in the Bayview Truth or Dare game. Up until this point we are led to believe that “Darkestmind” is the mastermind, but this Reddit thread we are shown on page 197 makes me think that it was “Bayview2020” and once things went wrong they ditched and left their accomplice to pick up the pieces.

Prediction

Page 212

Quite the obvious prediction but due to what we know of Brandon after hearing Knox’s parents conversation on page 212 it is safe to assume that Brandon has had some sort of sexual assault lawsuit against him in the past. 

Prediction Intense Guy is Derek, Emma’s ex boyfriend. 

I think Meave’s truth was the perfect truth to reveal about her. All three of our main characters have been humiliated at this point. However, they have all not been presented with a Truth or Dare text. Knox was never a part of the game, but he still had a secret revealed about him disguised as Maeve’s. Now all three of the storytellers have personal stakes in Unknown’s game without using up more time to give Knox an individual text. I also think given Maeve’s character that is the perfect truth to reveal because it easily tore Knox and Maeve apart. She cares a lot about Knox especially since he was kind of her first/only friend that wasn’t Bronwyn’s. It was also the worst time to potentially end their friendship due to her suspected relapse. While Unknown had no way of knowing about that at the time, it adds another level of sadness and evilness that this game brought to Bayview High School.

If Into the Woods is referred to as a play one more time I’m going to scream. It is talked about multiple times throughout the book by multiple people, some of which are theatre people and every time it is called a play. It’s a MUSICAL! (Unintentional Something Rotten reference) Also Jack isn’t the lead the Baker is. I love Karen McManus’s writing but the feral theatre kid is coming out of me. 

Prediction

Page 262

I think that the person who covered the bathroom graffiti about Phoebe on page 262 was Jules. I think it’s very possible that we will see a Jules redemption arc and she will help our trio put together some of the missing pieces surrounding Brandon’s death. However, I think it would be extremely interesting and less obvious to get a Monica redemption arc and she ends up playing that role for us. She could possibly be annoyed or feeling left out since Jules and Sean are now a “trauma bonded” couple, as Jules would call it. I would prefer a Monica arc, but think Jules is more probable. I would definitely say one of them is going to play a part in filling the gaps that Knox can’t and Sean probably won’t.

Prediction

Is Phoebe Bayview2020? If she is, I don't think that she’s Unknown. However, I’m not sure that it’s DarkestMind either.

Prediction

Kind of going back on my previous theory. This is assuming that Darkestmind is Unknown and Phoebe is Bayview2020. What if Unknown aka Darkestmind unknowingly exposed Bayview2020. Phoebe then reveals her identity and they struck up some sort of deal the Phoebe didn’t hold up her end of. But why is Phoebe on the “Revenge is Mine” forum anyway? I know this theory is a little confusing it makes more sense in my head.

Prediction

I don’t know how much even I believe this one, but what if Sean is Unknown and that’s why Phoebe was the first target? Jules pretty early on had seemed to sort of been getting closer to Monica. What if Sean had already started using Jules for information and got that tip about Phoebe? Even more perfect considering she and Brandon were hooking up. Following the assumption Brandon’s death was intentional and Sean had something to do with it he obviously had something out for Brandon. Going after Phoebe was just another small hit he could take on Brandon. Jules claimed to not know about Phoebe and Derek but let’s be honest it happened at her house. She could’ve walked in on them, or had security cameras, or whatever else. Jules was hurt that Phoebe didn’t tell her and that’s why she so eagerly gave up that information about her “best friend.” He then roped others into that gameto make it not seem directly targeted at Brandon, then included himself to take him off the suspect list. 

Prediction

Pg. 312

Bayview2020 is Emma is (maybe) Unknown. Emma had reason to hate Brandon since it was him who messed with the equipment that ended up killing her father. She didn’t start drinking until after Brandon’s death. It could be guilt that’s driving her to drink like this, since she never has before. She might’ve used a different name to Darkestmind on Reddit because obviously you wouldn’t want a stranger that’s likely crazy to know your real name. If she is Unknown then she somehow already knew about Phoebe and Derek and wanting to get revenge. Phoebe was someone she could easily pretend to be since they’re sisters, so she told Darkestmind aka Jared that she was Phoebe. 

That’s all the notes I took on One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus. I only started taking notes when I was probably over halfway through with the book, but I really enjoy doing it! I really loved this book. I was worried going into it because I loved the first book, One of Us Is Lying, so, so much and really wished that the sequel still followed our main characters from the first book. After reading this one, however, I’m really glad we got to know some new characters in this one while still getting to know what was going on in our Bayview Four’s lives. This is a really great read and I highly recommend this book and its predecessor. My next read is Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. I’m not sure if I’ll annotate that one but I’ll definitely write at least a summary and recommendation about it. Go Ask Alice is also a movie so I’ll watch that and see how they compare. <3 :)