Review Detail

4.0 2

Tweaked

Young Adult Fiction 892

Deep and moving

February 25, 2009 (Updated: June 29, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Reader reviewed by Laina

Tweaked by Katherine Holubitsky

Summary (from the publisher's website): Sixteen-year-old Gordie Jessup is a good
kid but hes living a nightmare. His eighteen-year-old brother Chases
two-year addiction to crystal meth has left their family emotionally
and financially drained. And just when Gordie thinks he can no longer
stand the manipulating, the lying and the stealing, things get even
worse. Chase is arrested for aggravated assault, released on bail and
sent home to his family. But his dealers are after him and Chase
appeals to Gordie for help. Gordie, disgusted with his brother and
fully aware that its a gamble, risks everything he has in the hope of
bringing his family some peace.

Review:
There aren't a lot of good books about drug addiction. Well, I
shouldn't say that, because there more than likely are a lot, I've just
not come across them. Personally, I haven't come across any that take a deep, true look at what dealing with a relative is really like. It's not pretty, it's not easy, and it's not sugar-coated in the least, and I admire the author so much for that. At the same time, though, it doesn't read like a public service announcement. It's emotional and truthful and real.

Gordie
is such a good character who was so interesting to read. He isn't
perfect, he doesn't always think or do the right things, but he reads
like a real seventeen year old boy who's in the hard situation of
having a meth addicted sibling. Besides Gordie, the other characters
are very well-developed. His parents, the girl he likes, the smaller
characters such as the members of the band he was a part of, his boss,
even a storekeeper in a pawn shop whose name we never even learned
showed depth. The only one who didn't show as much depth as all the
others was Chase, and that was realistic of the intensity of his
addiction.

I'm trying to think of bad things about the book and
failing miserably. The only part that I didn't love was that it took me
a little while to get into it, but I was in a weird mood and I think I
may have not slept, so that was probably me.

Conclusion: Read
it, read it, read it! This is such a good book about such a hard
subject, written very very well, and it's definitely worth picking up.

*Reprinted from http://lainahastoomuchsparetime.blogspot.com/ with author's permission.

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