title: Bewilderness
author: Tucker, Karen
description: Set in rural, poverty-stricken North Carolina, this "beautiful, gritty, and piercing" novel follows two young women--best friends--as they "journey through the highs and lows of friendship, love, and addiction," perfect for readers of Julie Buntin's
  Marlena
   (Erika Carter, author of
  Lucky You
  ).
  Irene, a lonely nineteen-year-old in rural North Carolina, works long nights at the local pool hall, serving pitchers and dodging drunks. One evening, her hilarious, magnetic coworker Luce invites her on a joy ride through the mountains to take revenge on a particularly creepy customer. Their adventure not only spells the beginning of a dazzling friendship, it seduces both girls into the mysterious world of pills and the endless hustles needed to fund the next high.
  Together, Irene and Luce run nickel-tossing scams at the county fair and trick dealers into trading legit pharms for birth-control pills. Everything is wild and wonderful until Luce finds a boyfriend who wants to help her get clean. Soon the two of them decide to move away and start a new, sober life in Florida--leaving Irene behind.
  Told in a riveting dialogue between the girls' addicted past and their hopes for a better future,
  Bewilderness
  is not just a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking novel about opioid abuse, it's also a moving look at how intense, intimate friendships can shape every young woman's life.