Opioid, Indiana by Brian Allen CarrMy rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
This book was a good attempt at showing how a teenager deals with things he shouldn't have to. He is an orphan at too young an age and moved from caretaker to caretaker, the lastest being his mother's younger brother who is a drug addict. Our narrator, Riggle, never tells us the name of the town, instead naming it Opioid for all of the addicts.
The book takes place over about a week of time, and each day we get a little fable that his mom told him with using a hand shadow puppet they called Remote. I didn't like these asides. Also made it feel like the character is much younger than his 17 years, but that's understandable with his circumstances. He's had to take care of himself at too young of age.
During this week Riggle is suspended from school and he and Peggy (his uncle's live-in girlfriend) are trying, half-hardheartedly, to find the uncle. Riggle's only friend plays a small role in the story too, grounding us in the reality of kids living with the possibility of school shootings. There's a lot in this short novel, too much perhaps, and unfortunately a lot of it is lost.
There are interesting sentences and observations but somehow the book isn't pulled together well. It's hard to pin down exactly but the book didn't resonate with me. Perhaps for teenagers this will be a better read for them, yet I find it hard to call this young adult. (I did add the tag.) The book is grity and dark, but the language and main character does lend it to that YA genre. I wanted the book to work, but unfortunately, for me it didn't.
Book rating: 2.5 stars, rounded down
Thanks to Soho Press and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
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