'Roxy' by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman

Roxy by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Imagine if drugs were people. What would they say to each other? What would they say to you when you take them?

Roxy has done just that, turned the drugs themselves into characters. Roxy (oxycodone) and Addie (adderall) decide to have a contest over siblings Ivy and Isaac to see who can not only bring them to the Party as their plus one, but to take them all the way to VIP lounge by themselves, without their upline, more powerful and addictive drugs, stealing their marks.

We already know one of them succeeded from the opening scene. As the book opens, Narcan has just been administered but realizes he won’t be successful; this OD will be DOA. The first responders pull out an ID with only the first initial I.

Ivy is a ne'er-do-well high school senior on a trajectory to miss graduating, and Isaac is an overachieving A-student and soccer star, so it seems obvious that Ivy will be the one to go to the VIP lounge. But the authors, award-winning Neal Shusterman and his son Jarrod, do a masterful job of keeping the suspense going, and the odds go back and forth right up to the end.

I found the construction interesting (although my web browser must have thought I had a problem as I looked up nicknames for drugs). The pacing began slowly but it picked up and became driving. Masterful, entertaining, and instructive, Roxy should appeal to Neal Shusterman’s fans and any reader of YA lit.