A review by lexiww
Love Is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson

3.0

The U.S is in a state of panic: a lethal flu virus has become a pandemic, and international conspiracy theories abound. Emily Bird, whose absent parents are scientists for the CIA, watches as her city of Washington, D.C., her elite private high school, and even her own home are quarantined. And while her community and the rest of the country fall into a tailspin, Bird has a much closer danger at hand: Roosevelt Davis, a homeland security agent, is threatening her and Coffee, the drug-dealing son of a Brazilian diplomat, to whom Bird has a moth-to-the-flame kind of attraction. What Bird knows about the virus—or what Roosevelt thinks she knows—and what Coffee has done threaten their well-being more than any virus could. And somehow amid all the peril, Bird finds a self-awareness that has laid dormant her entire life. Johnson (The Summer Prince, 2013) has once again crafted a consuming story, this time intertwining politics, medicine, the idiosyncrasies of family and friendship ties, and one potentially fatal attraction. Riveting in both its pacing and plausibility. — Lexi Walters Wright, First published September 15, 2014 (Booklist)