A review by ayelle3
All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin

4.0

I was surprised to encounter reviews that scoffed at Zevin's futuristic premise that coffee and chocolate have been made illegal, and specifically at the way the characters in the book react to them as if they were in fact dangerous -- like how users are described as getting "high" or "wasted" after ingesting these substances, which of course we generally consider to be harmless. Of course, these reviewers are missing the point that the way people perceive the dangers of controlled substances, and even the ways we personally experience them if we try them, are arguably as influenced by our expectations (set by how society tells us they will affect us) as by their actual, physiological effects on our bodies. (For example, see also persistent beliefs that ingesting sugar makes children "hyperactive" despite the fact that scientific studies have never found any evidence of a causal link.) That said, I couldn't help but feel that Zevin's premise is validated by this article about "caffeine intoxication" in the DSM-V: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/dsm-5-caffeine-intoxication-coffee_n_3353202.html