Name: Roxy
ISBN: 9781406392128

Neal Shusterman

Roxy

Jarrod Shusterman

From the team that brought you the New York Times bestselling Dry comes a riveting new thriller that explores the opioid crisis.​ The freeway is coming. It will cut the neighborhood in two. Construction has already started, pushing toward this corridor of condemned houses and cracked concrete with the momentum of the inevitable. Yet there you are, in the fifth house on the left, fighting for your life. Ramey, I. The victim of the bet between two manufactured gods, Roxy and Addison—Roxicodone and Adderall, the low-level cronies of more illustrious bosses, who more than anything else want to prove their own lethality. The wager—a contest to see who can induce overdose first—is a race to the bottom of a party that has raged since the beginning of time. And you are only human, seduced by the release they bring. Tempted by the control they offer. They are beautiful, and they will give you the world—as long as you promise them forever. But there are two I. Rameys—Isaac, a soccer player thrown into Roxy’s orbit by a bad fall and a bad doctor and Ivy, his older sister, whose increasing frustration with her untreated ADHD leads her to renew her acquaintance with Addy. Which one are you?

Until reading this book, I didn’t realize how easy it is to get caught up in an addiction to drugs (even if they seem benign). What a powerful perspective and story!

Jeweliet Coffee

Jade 🌷

** spoiler alert **
           This book was something else. It shows the relationship between the drug and the user. It shows this harmony and then this dissonance verweb the two. This type of love and heartbreak. 

Set in the beginning, these two drugs competing for the VIP lounge spot. They take on these two people, siblings, one for ADHD and another for a sports induced injury. 

Throughout the book the reader learns all four perspectives, but what stops me from giving it five stars was how difficult it was for me to really distinguish who was speaking. While yes, each chapter told you who’s perspective it’s in and the different types of points of view changes, it gets challenging for the reader.

It was easy to tell when the humans were talking but it got hard to tell when the drugs, the main characters, were talking and for that I rate it 4 stars.

I was particularly angry about the ending, not that it was a surprise, but that it lead up to the ending it lead to. We knew going into it what ending we were gonna get, but I hated the reality of it.

When it comes to substances though, that’s reality. You’re not always gonna get the ending that you’re hoping for. 

I loved the reality in the sense, it teaches the readers the story but I hated it if that makes sense.

That all being said, we learn how one can be opposed to taking substances to how one doesn’t see how much they’re addicted and abusing.

And most importantly it shows how convincing those substances can be and what their true agenda can be. Even if it’s to genuinely help like Naloxone or just one to seriously hinder you like Heroine. I loved the perspective Roxy (Oxycontin) had in how it genuinely fell in love with her user and how in reality that’s how it goes when it comes to a drug like Oxy.

You use it to help heal, and then it has you in its grasp and the boundaries become blurred and lust becomes real. It doesn’t matter who and what you are, you’re stuck in this cycle and we really see that with Roxy. She fell in love with her user and then she got so caught up in him that she took it too far that it was too late to stop it. 

Roxy was heartbroken again and again. 

This really shows the readers so much when it comes to the war on drugs. Why one starts, what keeps them in, what is the reason behind this, and why can’t they stop? 

Why didn’t anyone stop it until it was too late?

Lotty 

Berauschende Lesereise

Beschreibung: 
Als Isaac der überirdisch schönen Roxy begegnet, zieht sie ihn sofort in ihren Bann. Er fühlt sich lebendig wie nie, alles ist leicht und nichts scheint unmöglich. Isaac ahnt nicht, dass Roxy kein normales Mädchen ist, sondern eine Droge, hergestellt in einem Labor, um die Menschen von ihrem Schmerz zu befreien. Und Millionen Menschen lieben sie dafür. Doch das ist Roxy nicht genug. Sie will beweisen, wie tödlich sie ist. 
Stell dir vor, Drogen wären Menschen wie du und ich ... Was würden sie fühlen, denken und wovon würden sie heimlich träumen?

In diesem Buch erzählen Neal und Jarrod Shusterman auf visuelle und kognitiv anspruchsvolle Weise die Wirkung von Drogen, dessen Missbrauch und die verheerenden Auswirkungen auf das Leben aller betroffenen. Dabei ist es egal ob diese legalisiert sind wie Alkohol oder illegal wie LSD oder Oxycodone. Man wird förmlich ein gesogen in eine Welt zwischen Rausch, Realitätsverlust und Fantasy- da die Drogen personifiziert werden. 
Es ist nicht vergleichbar mit anderen Jugendbüchern und trifft den Zeitgeist, indem Experimente von Jugendlichen mit Drogen nicht oft genug thematisiert werden. Außerdem visualisiert  die Geschichte eindringlich, wie leicht es ist in die Abhängigkeit zu rutschen und dass niemand vor eine solchen Sucht bzw. Abhängigkeit sicher ist, besonders innerhalb der USA, denn dort werden Opiate großzügig als Schmerzmittel verordnet.

Melissa Palmer

Excellent young adult fiction about two siblings that both are caught up in drug addiction. This book will appeal to both boy and girl HS readers. Highly recommend it!

Katheryn

Beautiful prose and a heartbreaking story. I loved it. I love how each song has its own voice and own way of coaxing each person. Some are legitimate. Some are legitimate ones whose purpose goes awry. Some are evil to the core. It's well written and shows how everyone reacts differently to drugs, both legitimate and illegal.

Hannah Mobbs

its quite sad going towards the end but its honestly amazing it takes you a while to get used to all the different povs but it is worth it

Avery Baumel

Pretty awful and definitely not riveting. Way too on-the-nose to be at all clever or interesting

Mirella Hetekivi

I'd give this book ten stars. Haven't cried this much for years. Thank you for giving the reality of our world such a powerful voice.

Jennifer

I'm officially dnfing. I stopped reading for a while, because the book just confused the heck out of me, but ultimately wasn't drawn to it, so it's leaving.👋🏻

Bryanna M

I could see how some might find this a bit cheesy, but I loved the concept, the depiction of addiction (and how it can affect anyone, from the “bad kids” to the “golden child”), and the careful line between these medications being helpful and harmful. Plus with my background knowledge of pharmacology, I found the references pretty enjoyable

Roxy

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