by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Read in November 2021
In this book, different drugs are personified as characters in the story as they interact with the two main human characters. The drug characters are easily identifiable by their names and traits (party girl Roxy is Oxycontin, serious Addison is Adderall, spacey Mary Jane is cannabis, you get the idea) and they are trying to get their plus ones (users) to the party (overdose). It might have been a good cautionary tale for teens who are just entering their period of experimentation but I don’t think the anti-drug message was strong enough for that. I didn’t really like the idea of drugs having their own motivation with the end goal being overdose. This was especially inappropriate for Adderall which is a pharmaceutical that has a medical purpose. It was an interesting idea but I don’t know that it was executed as well as it could have been. I think with such a serious topic that is affecting a lot of people right now, the story was a little flippant.