Tag Archives: drug addiction

Review: Better Must Come by Desmond Hall

Book Review and Content, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,
Better Must Come by Desmond Hall

Better Must Come
Desmond Hall
Atheneum
Published June 4, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Better Must Come

Barely Missing Everything meets American Street in this fiercely evocative, action-packed young adult thriller that looks at the darker side of light-filled Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money helplessly entangle the lives of two teens who want to change their fate.

Deja is a “barrel girl”—one of the Jamaican kids who get barrels full of clothes, food, and treats shipped to them from parents who have moved to the US or Canada to make more money. Gabriel is caught up in a gang and desperate for a way out. When he meets Deja at a party, he starts looking for a way into her life and wonders if they could be a part of each other’s futures.

Then, one day while out fishing, Deja spies a go-fast boat stalled out by some rocks, smeared with blood. Inside, a badly wounded man thrusts a knapsack at her, begging her to deliver it to his original destination, and to not say a word. She binds his wounds, determined to send for help and make good on her promise…not realizing that the bag is stuffed with $500,000 American. Not realizing that the posse Gabriel is in will stop at nothing to get their hands on this bag—or that Gabriel’s and her lives will intersect in ways neither ever imagined, as they both are forced to make split-second choices to keep the ones they love most alive.

My Review

One of the things I love about a good YA thriller is how fast it feels to read them. This one is no exception. The early chapters start out a bit slow, with the real plot taking off a little before the 100-page mark. Once that acceleration happens, though, buckle up. From there on, I felt like I couldn’t look away from the page for a second.

Deja and Gabriel each have chapters from their points of view. Sometimes, several chapters in a row follow one person’s viewpoint before switching back to the other person’s. Though less predictable, the switches happen at critical moments and build a lot of tension.

I think I’ve only read one other book set in Jamaica (a memoir called Funny Gyal by Angeline Jackson and Susan McClelland), and I’ve never visited, so I’m not very familiar with the landscape. I thought the descriptions of the setting did a great job anchoring the story and helping me picture the scenes without slowing down the action.

The relationship between Deja and Gabriel carries its own tension. It doesn’t dominate the story but adds a lot of interest, especially for Gabriel as a character. Ultimately he has to make a choice whether to help Deja or take action to protect himself and his best friend. I liked the way this part of the story resolves. It feels both realistic and satisfying.

All in all, readers looking for books in international settings will find this one a fresh, intense read. It’s also a great choice for readers who enjoy crime thrillers. Definitely a great summer read!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Deja and Gabriel are Jamaican.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used somewhat infrequently. Several F-bombs and some Jamaican swear words used in intense moments.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some attraction between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Deja and Gabriel both seek spiritual counsel from a local pastor. Deja references praying when she’s scared. She says she wants to believe in God but hasn’t seen a lot of evidence in her life that He’s real.

Violent Content
Gabriel is a member of a posse, or gang and carries a gun. Someone discovers a man gravely injured from a gunshot wound. Someone discovers the bodies of two young men. People, including corrupt police officers, threaten one another at gunpoint. More than one scene describes an intense chase, in which someone flees from others who intend to harm them.

Drug Content
Gabriel finds evidence that his aunt is using heroin. She has a history of drinking too much as well. He asks her to get treatment, but she refuses. Gabriel encounters a man who is high on cocaine. He sets out to find a case of drugs that’s gone missing.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Upstander by James Preller

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Upstander
James Preller
Feiwel & Friends
Published May 11, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Upstander

Girl bullies, internet bullying, and substance use are themes in this James Preller middle grade standalone companion to Bystander

Mary O’Malley is tired of keeping secrets. Secrets like her older brother, Jonny’s, drug use. Starting seventh grade is tough enough without the upheaval her brother is bringing to their family.

It seems the only person who might understand is Griffen Connolly, whose older sister runs with Jonny in the wrong crowd. Mary thought Griff was too cool, too popular for her. But now he wants to hang out with her, and listen.

When two girls Mary thought were her friends decide to slam another girl online, Mary tries to look the other way. Then the girls turn on Mary, and suddenly, she doesn’t have a safety zone. Her brother is out of control, her family’s energies are all spent on him. There is only one person she can turn to. But can she trust Griff? Or is he one of the bullies?

My Review

This book reminded me a little bit of MARY UNDERWATER by Shannon Doleski, which I absolutely loved. In addition to being a book about a girl named Mary, UPSTANDER is about a sensitive, smart girl battling the violence of bullying and trying to find ways to love her brother despite his drug use disorder.

Mary faces a lot of challenging relationships. First, two of her girl friends make it clear they want to exclude a third girl, leaving Mary to decide whether to follow along. Then, a boy Mary spends time with teams up with two other boys to bully neighborhood kids. Again Mary finds herself in the middle, and she has to decide whether or not to speak up.

As Mary’s brother’s addiction becomes increasingly destructive to her family, Mary faces the same challenge about speaking up in her own family. Does she stay silent when her brother and mom fight, or is there a way to intervene and let them know how she feels?

Mary wrestles with these big emotions and complex relationships, all the while seeking to be true to herself and her personal values of kindness and generosity. She doesn’t always make the right choices, but she never stops trying to learn or to find a way through that doesn’t cause harm to someone else.

I loved this heartfelt, powerful story. I haven’t read BYSTANDER, which is a companion to this book and was published first, but I definitely want to read it now. So, I would love to see more of the community around Mary and read more by James Preller.

Content Notes

Content warning for drug addiction and bullying violence.

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Some minor characters are Black.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
An adult talks about marring another adult. A boy moves in with his girlfriend. Mary discovers she has feelings for a boy at school. A girl talks about a boy asking her to send sexy pictures of herself. Later she mentions that she has sent him something, but isn’t specific what it is.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Instances of bullying. A group of boys harass another boy, squirting ketchup packets on him. They bully another boy, threatening to take his basketball. A group of boys beat up another boy.

Drug Content
Mary’s brother is addicted to drugs. He steals items from their home and argues with Mary’s mom. Off-scene, a girl experiences a drug overdose. A boy who was there describes it afterward.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of Upstander in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Fragile Remedy by Maria Ingrande Mora

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

Fragile Remedy
Maria Ingrande Mora
Flux
Published March 9, 2021

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Fragile Remedy

Sixteen-year-old Nate is a GEM—Genetically Engineered Medi-tissue created by the scientists of Gathos City as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population. As a child, he was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and into the Withers—a quarantined, lawless region. Nate manages to survive by using his engineering skills to become a Tinker, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy that makes his heart race, and his misfit gang of scavengers, Nate finds the family he’s always longed for—even if he can’t risk telling them what he is.

But Gathos created a genetic failsafe in their GEMs—a flaw that causes their health to rapidly deteriorate as they age unless they are regularly dosed with medication controlled by Gathos City. As Nate’s health declines, his hard-won freedom is put in jeopardy. Violence erupts across the Withers, his illegal supply of medicine is cut off, and a vicious attack on Reed threatens to expose his secret. With time running out, Nate is left with only two options: work for a shadowy terrorist organization that has the means to keep him alive, or stay — and die — with the boy he loves.

My Review

So much happens in this one story that I’m having a hard time knowing where to begin.

I loved Nate’s character. He’s young and inexperienced and fierce and hopeful and a little bit self-loathing. I also loved the characters in the gang. Reese is loyal and true, always sticking to his values. Pixel is adorable. And the rest of the girls made it feel like such a little family.

Nate also has a relationship with Alden, a curio shop owner, drug addict, and man with connections. And Remedy, which Nate needs to live. It’s a complex relationship. I feel like I’d need a psychology degree to pick it apart. There are some really unhealthy elements to it, and yet somewhere in there is a protectiveness and loyalty and maybe even friendship? But it’s pretty enmeshed with the other elements, too.

The story itself moves forward pretty quickly. In Nate’s dystopian city, it’s dangerous to stay still too long, and that sense came through in the plot. Though it’s not a story about addiction, the story explores some of the damage that addiction causes, not just to the individual with the problem, but to the family and community. It also explores darker ideas, like using drugs to create dependent people and maintain control.

It’s been a while since I read a good dystopian story, and FRAGILE REMEDY definitely hit a lot of good notes for me. It made me uncomfortable sometimes, but usually in a way that made me think more deeply about the issues at hand. I think readers who enjoy books that explore addiction or dystopian stories will want to add this one to their shelves.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Nate and several other characters are gay. One member of the gang is transgender.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used maybe once or twice per chapter on average.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys. References to arousal.

Spiritual Content
Some people worship the Old Gods. Others have no spiritual beliefs.

Violent Content
Scenes show kidnapping and a mob attacking someone. Other scenes show the aftermath of characters injured by others.

Drug Content
One character is a drug addict. Others find the properties of GEM blood addicting.

Note: I received a free copy of FRAGILE REMEDY in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: Again Again by E. Lockhart

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Again Again
E. Lockhart
Delacorte Press
Published June 2, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Again Again

In this novel full of surprises from the New York Times bestselling author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud, E. Lockhart ups the ante with an inventive and romantic story about human connection, forgiveness, self-discovery, and possibility.

If you could live your life again, what would you do differently?

After a near-fatal family catastrophe and an unexpected romantic upheaval, Adelaide Buchwald finds herself catapulted into a summer of wild possibility, during which she will fall in and out of love a thousand times—while finally confronting the secrets she keeps, her ideas about love, and the weird grandiosity of the human mind.

A raw, funny story that will surprise you over and over, Again Again gives us an indelible heroine grappling with the terrible and wonderful problem of loving other people.

My Review

It took me a little bit to get my footing with this book. Basically, as a scene unfolds, there are other possible outcomes that appear in bold (at least, they’re bold in the ARC). So you read a scene as it plays out several different possible ways. Then the text goes back to normal and you read on.

At first, I found it a little confusing. In a way, that made the story reflect Adelaide herself– because she’s definitely confused and kind of going in circles at the beginning of the story.

The more I read, the more I liked the style of storytelling and the characters in the book. I especially liked Adelaide’s relationship with her brother, Toby. It felt so raw and aching and yet like there was so much potential for joy there. The way they spoke about their parents felt so real in terms of sibling relationships.

I feel like AGAIN AGAIN delivered a thing that drew me to E. Lockhart’s writing in the first place (She also wrote WE WERE LIARS, which I LOVED!). It’s like she has this uncanny ability to peel back the outer layers and cut straight to the core of emotions and grief and sort of reinvent the experience of reading a book. I wouldn’t want every book to be told in this way, but I feel like it really worked for this particular book with this particular family. All in all, I am so glad I read it, and would definitely recommend it to others.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Adelaide’s roommate is a lesbian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used a couple dozen times or so throughout the book.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Reference to sex and nudity.

Spiritual Content
Some reference to a higher power.

Violent Content
A girl gets bitten on her wrist pretty severely by a Pitbull.

Drug Content
Adelaide and Toby’s parents are pretty permissive about teens drinking alcohol. One character develops an addiction to opiates and then heroin. One scene describes finding out a person has overdosed on heroin.

Note: I received a free copy of AGAIN AGAIN in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Finding Hope by Colleen Nelson

Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Finding Hope
Colleen Nelson
Dundurn

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Sixteen year-old Hope is trapped in a small town as her family wrestles with her brother’s addiction to crystal meth. After her mom pushes her to apply for a prestigious boarding school over an hour away, she’s shocked to discover she’s been accepted. There’s only one problem: if she moves away, how will her brother, Eric, survive on the street without the money and food she regularly slips to him? When Eric learns Hope has gone away to school, he follows her to the city. Unfortunately, his inner demons only torment him harder as he draws nearer to the memories that pushed his former life completely off the rails. He turns to Hope for help, but she has her own battles to fight, and for the first time, she may not be able to save him from himself.

Though Finding Hope is described as being about Hope, I kind of felt like Eric stole the show. This sort of echoes the way Hope’s family operates, where Eric is the squeaky wheel, the one who requires a lot of intervention and causes a lot of tension, and Hope sort of goes quietly unnoticed. I felt a little disappointed that the novel kind of went the same way. She has her own crisis to manage, but even that sort of took a back seat to Eric’s unfolding drama.

One thing I really liked was the role her poetry played in the story. I liked that she crafted poems during intense situations and that she used them to communicate with her brother. I also loved the way her writing impulses escalated to her scrawling the lines on her own body. I felt that increased pressure and that sort of coming-unglued feeling right along with her in those moments.

I wished I’d gotten to see more of her relationship with Devon as it unfolded. I felt like we got snippets of her email exchanges, but not enough to make me feel like I understood or believed in the relationship.

The story resolves many of the big issues raised, some more easily than others. Again, Hope’s troubles sort of take a backseat to Eric’s. Things unwind pretty quickly, and true to its title, the tale leaves readers with the sense that the worst is over, and better days are ahead for Hope and her family.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used moderately throughout the book. Most of the profanity is in the sections from Eric’s point-of-view.

Romance/Sexual Content
Girls at Hope’s new school dare each other to walk through the hall naked or send photos of their breasts to boys from another school. A man encourages a boy to watch pornography. One character reveals memories of abuse. The memories are choppy, it’s not a play-by-play reveal of events, but there are some graphic, intense descriptions, including one describing coerced oral sex.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Eric injures his hand during a robbery.

Drug Content
Eric is addicted to crystal meth. The addiction is clearly destroying his life and relationships with his family. He’s living on the street, depending on handouts from guilt-ridden or sympathetic family members and strangers.

Note: I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

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Go Ask Alice (Anonymous)

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Go Ask Alice
Anonymous
Simon Pulse
First published in 1971

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Go Ask Alice is a haunting story of a young girl’s descent into drug addiction and her desperate attempt to break free again. Her journal entries detail the highs and lows she experiences as she falls deeper under the spell her addiction to LSD. Through Alice’s eyes the reader sees her family’s desperate struggle to reach her, and the seductive power of the chemicals that pull her away from them.

First printed in 1971, Go Ask Alice still remains one of the most popular works about teen drug addiction.

It’s definitely a dated tale, but I think one of the reasons it survives is how haunting the story is. Something about it reminded me a little bit of That Was Then, This is Now by S. E. Hinton.

Did you know?
Those of you Go Ask Alice buffs… Did you know that though Alice is generally accepted as the unclaimed diary of a teen-aged girl wrestling with drug addiction, it is in fact a novel! As in… fiction. Yep. Check out the info posted on the Snopes Urban Legend web site. Posing as a diary gave the story a huge amount of credibility, but nope. It’s all made up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Heavy

Sexual Content
With the entrance of drugs into Alice’s world follows sex. Her experiences are reflected back upon via her diary entries. The references are not drawn out, but still briefly state what occurred. Some characters also refer to homosexual experiences.

Spiritual Content
None

Violence
While there isn’t really any violence as a part of the story, some of the hallucinations Alice experiences are vivid and really creepy.

Drug Content
This is a book about drug addiction, so there are several scenes that detail Alice’s drug abuse. The book also shows the consequences of drug addiction– her life spirals out of control, she winds up in a sanitarium, has physical side effects from detox and long term abuse.

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