Deep, powerful, and moving. This is the story of Riggle, a 17 year old boy suspended from school for the week and looking for his missing, junkie uncle. You'll be hooked from page one, I promise. Opioid, Indiana is a Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century.

Unfortunately, I only made it about halfway through. I didn't feel much for the characters, and was uninterested in the execution of the plot.

Opioid, Indiana
Book Review | 📚📚📚📚 4/5
Brian Allen Carr (author) | Soho Press

Growing up as a transplant teenager in Opioid, Indiana isn’t easy. Especially when adults are completely self-occupied, and your only friends are a cellphone-addicted buddy and an insightful hand shadow puppet.

Why I was interested in this book:
Opioid, Indiana is another grit-lit tale, this time from a small midwestern town. Author Brian Allen Carr was written some other gritty and horror-based books that I have not yet read, but have found very intriguing.
Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.com for an honest review. I would not have requested to read this book had I not been interested in the topic. And I was not disappointed!

My assessment:
This was a very finely crafted book. It took place over the course of a week and had all the best elements of a grit-lit novel: a self-reliant and lost protagonist; unavailable, unreliable, and/or self-occupied family and authority figures, and quirky friends and community folk. The story is from the perspective of the 17-year old main character, Riggle. It integrated an allegory of growth via the days of the week, philosophical social construct, and despondent adults. While the situations and commentary were adult and serious, the youthful perspective was riddled with humor and thoughtfulness. The sentence in the book that seemed to sum up the story was “You have to focus on how the pain of now can lead to the joy of tomorrow.”

The biggest challenge I found with the book was its writing perspective. While Riggle is a quasi-experienced teen in Opioid, Indiana, (which could have just as easily been renamed as Anytown, USA) it was hard to believe that he could be so intuitive, know so much about philosophy and life in an academic way, and still be as naïve and in need of adult love as he did. His voice was an awkward mix of teen vernacular and context well beyond his abilities. There were some great support characters who demonstrated providing appropriate attention and nurturing, despondency, or an inability to care.

Stories of the human condition:
This story is a reminder of so many parts of our current country’s problems: addiction, loss and death, child neglect, gun control, fear, and quick answers via Google. It’s also a story for self-realization, hope, personal growth and the pursuit for a positive life. Each character adds to the fairy tale that is Riggle’s life, and the allegorical use of a quirky but lovable, and fantasized authority figure is endearing. Ultimately, it’s a moral of “it gets better, but it’s up to you.”

TAGS:
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I was hesitant about this book at first. I wound up devouring it in two sittings. I was stuck by the RIggles intelligence and self reflection. It was a book about addiction that did not hit you over the head. I was concerned that it would be added to a chain of books that is voyeuristic, but the narrator made it personal.

This novel was surprisingly refreshing considering that it covers today's current events, which are relatively degrading and depressing, with such candor and wit from our 17 year old main character. This novel will attract both YA and adult readers. The novel begins with our main character, Riggle, questioning his personal identity in this world of locking up immigrants at the border, locking up drug addicts, waking up to discover his mother dead in bed, his father already dead, and dreading finding out if his uncle, who he is living with in Indiana, after leaving Texas, is dead from an overdose. The novel begins talking about fitting in as white, Hispanic, mixed race, where race didn't seem to matter as much in Texas as it does when he moves to a small town in Indiana, where he faces more Confederate flags, more Trumpers, more discrimination, more pain.. What makes the novel so unique is hearing about all this through the voice of a teenager, and how all this political and cultural madness affects teens, people who are rarely considered when discussing politics. I love how the author address gun violence and brings up the Parkland massacre. It does show the emergency of teen activism. Carr hauled ass to get this novel written--very timely, very enjoyable, even though the novel is surrounded by such bleakness.