Heroine by Mindy McGinnis

This is an unflinching portrait of opioid addiction. 

I’ll be the first to admit, I assumed that must opioid addicts are poor, uneducated, young, and live in rural America. McGinnis’ book made me question all of these stereotypes. 

Mickey is a high school softball star who refuses to touch alcohol for fear of getting kicked off the team. She gets decent grades, has good friends, and parents who are active in her life. But when she gets into a tragic car accident, Mickey is introduced to oxy, and finds that she can’t stop using it. She’s in too much pain. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to heal and get back on the softball field without it. 

Mickey’s drug dealer is a senior citizen who supplies pills with homemade chocolate chip cookies, and lets teenagers watch HGTV with her on the weekends. Mickey’s fellow user friends are academic scholars and sports hotshots. All around her, she hears about people ODing and dying, but Mickey isn’t like those people. She’s not an addict, she keeps telling herself. Not even when she steals from family members, and starts lying to keep her addiction a secret. After all, the OxyContin was originally prescribed by a doctor. That makes it legal, right?

This was a difficult YA novel to read, but I definitely recommend it. It humanizes an epidemic that affects all of America. What happens to Mickey could happen to anyone. That’s what makes this book truly terrifying. 

Have you read Heroine? What did you think?