This concept tho. Completely new and dark but really interesting. Also I must admit I don’t know anything about pills or their effects or what it feels like so I was pretty removed from all the common knowledge of the drugs in general. I felt like this book expected me to already know so I felt a little dumb when I couldn’t connect what drug was suppose to be represented by which person nickname unless it was explicitly stated. All the stars for the concept but keeping it PG-13 with highschoolers kept it from getting too ugly in their downward spirals. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Last thing, the bolded chapter titles hidden in the regular chapter titles became cumbersome to decipher after a while.

I want to start by saying #NealShusterman is one of my favorite modern authors. That being said, I have to say that #Roxy is a fascinating dud. The story follows Roxy (Oxycontin) and Addison (Adderall) as human (?) characters who enter into a challenge on who can bring their person to "The Party" as their "+1"--all codes for which drug can cause the person to overdose. These two people are siblings, Isaac and Ivy, and they are battling addictions as high school students. I understand what the Shustermans are doing in this book, telling a cautionary tale about the dangerous drug epidemics in our country and especially how young people are succumbing. These are very serious and important topics, .and the attempt to do so through this way of having various drugs act as human at a party is a novel twist. But I believe most of the drug references will be lost on younger audience members and the overall message of the book could get lost in this "cast of characters." Perhaps this is a better choice for an older crowd of late teens/college age people who may be able to understand the different drugs and their effects as human characters? Or maybe high school teens don't need the nicknames and drug references to get the message, in which case it may be fine for some students. Thank you to the publishers and #NetGalley for this ARC.

A great work from a great set of authors, the Shusterman clan does it again with ROXY. The premise of this sounds... odd. Personified medicine? What the heck? But it works, it works so, so well. I adored this, and it is full of everything you'd want from a Shusterman work and THEN some. Thank you for the e-arc!