I was provided an ARC by Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.
Trigger Warnings: The book starts with this warning: “This book contains realistic depictions of opioid use. Recovered and recovering addicts should proceed with caution.”. This book gets extremely detailed, and is pretty graphic.
Heroine follows the story of Mickey Catalan, a high school senior and well-known catcher for her school’s softball team. Mickey and her best friend Carolina, are is a tragic car accident. Mickey’s injuries are severe, she needed surgery to have pins pit into her leg, followed by physical therapy. She is prescribed Oxycodone as a pain killer, shes used the drug to numb her life as well as the pain.
Mickey is worried that she will not be ready to attend the starting season of softball, so she pushes herself during physio. But to make it through these appointments she takes extra pills to dull the pain. She soon runs out of pills. At her next Doctor’s appointment she is nervous asking for a refill, as she expected the Doctor tells her that she should have more pills left. Another patient overhears there conversation, once out in the parking lot,the older woman approaches Mickey, giving her her phone number.
She meets a new group of people through Edith, the woman from the parking lot. These people soon become her friends. Mickey feels closer to this group of people, as she believes they understand her better and her need of the Oxy. Soon after her Oxy connection runs dry and she turns to Heroin.
This is a very dark and graphic story about a teen who fights against her addiction. At first she is unwilling to admit to herself that she has a problem, even to her new friends who are also drug users she denies being an addict. Watching Mickey fall deeper and deeper was such an emotional experience I really felt for her. I liked how the book tells the story of how something as simple as taking a medication that is prescribed to you can lead to addiction. People don’t often think that that could be the start of an addiction. This book was definitely intense at times, and there are some really graphic scenes.
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I am really, really looking forward to this book!
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I always have mixed feelings about YA books with graphic drug use. I think it’s important to show how destructive addiction can be, but there’s a point where it gets so graphic, it’s almost like a how-to, you know? Did you feel like it romanticized the drug use at all or was really overtly a cautionary tale?
Thanks for your review. 🙂
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Great review! I am really looking forward to this book. I’ve only read one other book by McGinnis and didn’t enjoy it that much, so I’m hoping I like his one more.
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Thank you. I’ve never read any of her other books before.
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I have heard stories before from drug addicts saying that they had started getting addicted because they were using pills as painkillers. It will be interesting to read this book.
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Yes I’ve heard that a lot too. A person gets hurt and is prescribed something for pain and get hooked.
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What an interesting book concept! As a medical student I am thrilled to see more people exposed not just to the consequences of drug use (most of us know that), but how it is *nearly* impossible to stop once starting. Preventing addiction in the first place is our greatest weapon in defeating the monster. Thanks for sharing!
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Yes a lot of drug abuse starts out by someone picking up the drug but there are a many more situations where the addiction starts because of a prescription.
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