<P> In hindsight, commentators have suggested various motivations for the publishers to present Go Ask Alice as the work of an anonymous deceased teenager, such as avoiding literary criticism, lending validity to an otherwise improbable story, and stimulating young readers' interest by having the book's anti-drug advice come from a teenager rather than an adult . Sparks said that while there were "many reasons" for publishing the book anonymously, her main reason was to make it more credible to young readers . Although the book has been classified as fiction (see Treatment of book as fiction and non-fiction), the publisher has continued to list its author as "Anonymous". </P> <P> Sparks was involved in a similar controversy regarding the veracity of her second diary project, the 1979 book Jay's Journal . It was allegedly the real diary, edited by Sparks, of a teenage boy who committed suicide after becoming involved with the occult . The publisher's initial marketing of the book raised questions about whether Sparks had edited a real teenager's diary or written a fictional diary, and recalled the same controversy with respect to Go Ask Alice . Later, the family of real - life teenage suicide Alden Barrett contended that Jay's Journal used 21 entries from Barrett's real diary that the family had given to Sparks, but that the other 191 entries in the published book had been fictionalized or fabricated by Sparks, and that Barrett had not been involved with the occult or "devil worship". </P> <P> Sparks went on to produce numerous other books presented as diaries of anonymous troubled teens (including Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager and It Happened to Nancy: By an Anonymous Teenager) or edited transcripts of therapy sessions with teens (including Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets). Some commentators have noted that these books use writing styles similar to Go Ask Alice and contain similar themes, such as tragic consequences for spending time with bad companions, a protagonist who initially gets into trouble by accident or through someone else's actions, and portrayal of premarital sex and homosexuality as always wrong . Although Sparks was typically listed on these books as editor or preparer, the number of similar books that Sparks published, making her "arguably the most prolific Anonymous author in publishing", fueled suspicions that she wrote Go Ask Alice . </P> <P> In a 1998 New York Times book review, Mark Oppenheimer suggested that Go Ask Alice had at least one author besides Sparks . He identified Linda Glovach, an author of young - adult novels, as "one of the' preparers'--let's call them forgers--of Go Ask Alice", although he did not give his source for this claim . Publishers Weekly, in a review of Glovach's 1998 novel Beauty Queen (which told the story, in diary form, of a 19 - year - old girl addicted to heroin), also stated that Glovach was "a co-author of Go Ask Alice". </P>

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