Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Roxy by Jarrod Shusterman, Neal Shusterman

2 reviews

oliverreeds's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

writing is good. but its a little heavy handed. doesnt leave a lot of the metaphor to the imagination.

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princess_peach's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

I enjoyed this book as much as one can enjoy a book about addiction. It was interesting to have the perspectives of both Roxy and Adderall along with the two main characters, Issac and Ivy. I've seen some criticisms about stigmatizing the use of Adderall, which I understand and maybe the authors could have at least put an author's note highlighting that medications help many many many people and that medication stigma is a harmful barrier to people asking for or accessing needed medications.
I think the scenes with Rit(alin) and Adderall are really helpful to show how much the medication does help and how it is a good tool to use for ADD and ADHD. Ivy's increase in productivity and focus when she's taking it as prescribed shows that it works as it's being used. Ivy's misuse of the medication shows that it, along with any other drugs, can be harmful when misused. Roxy's statements about how it "helps people" are more clear-- more "told than showed", whereas Adderall's was more "shown than told."
I don't think that the book specifies that Adderall is inherently more or worse than other drugs that are used or misused; rather that it can be misused. I think it's an interesting approach to use prescription drugs as the main drugs of the book because prescription drugs may be more accessible. A guide for the names of the drugs would have been helpful, and the "Party" could have been a little more clearly explained. Also, the time line of events seemed a little rushed for me, though to be fair, I don't know if there's a "typical" timeline for addiction.

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