Review: good YA contemporary story dealing with addiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2013
(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Rockstars Blog Tours and Entangled publishing.)For 18-year-old Imogen (Genna), basketball is everything. She's destined for a scholarship to college to play basketball, and things are even looking up with Jake, a boy who she has had a major crush on forever.When Genna is injured during a basketball game, all her plans are dust when she is told that she will never be able to play professional basketball again.With Vicodin the only thing keeping her going, and her mother more and more absent from her life, Genna feels like her life is on a downward spiral.Can Genna learn to cope without the Vicodin? Should she still be with Jake? What is her mother up to? And what will happen to Genna now she can't play basketball?This was a good YA contemporary story, and I liked how normal Genna was.Genna was a great character. She was just so normal! Totally the sort of person that you would be friends with and go to school with, and what happened to her just sucked. I really felt for her when she realised that her career was over, and the way that she became hooked on Vicodin, without even realising it showed how dangerously addictive narcotics are, even to your average everyday person.I liked the storyline in this book, and I liked how well the book flowed. I felt really sorry for what Genna was going through, and at the same time understood her addiction and how she ended up where she was. I did see some parts of the storyline coming, but this didn't really spoil the story at all.I thought the drug addiction part of the story was done really well, especially as Genna felt like a normal person, and didn't come across the way you would expect an addict to come across. I also liked how the legal problems of Genna's addiction were also dealt with.I liked the romance between Genna and Jake, although that wasn't really the main focus of the story. I thought that there could possibly have been a bit more romance, but the story was fine as it was really. If you're looking for a romance novel, this isn't really it though, this focuses more on Genna's problem with drugs.I liked the ending of the book, and I liked how things worked out okay for Genna in the end, and we got as much of a happy ending as we could in the situation!Overall; a good YA contemporary story dealing with addiction.8 out of 10.