A review by syl_val15
Heroine by Mindy McGinnis

4.0

4 out of 5 Stars!

This review may contain spoilers:

I ususally don't go for stories like this, because of the dark subjects that are being dealt in the stories can be too heavy for me sometimes, but for some reason I found myself becoming invested in the synopsis so I decided to give the book a try. Before the book was released I read a sneak a peak of it and I immideately knew that Heroine will be worth the read.

Heroine has been a solid four star read for me. It is the kind of book that will grip you from the beginning till the end. A kind of a story that you don't want to stop with it and constantly want to know what will happen and how things will eventually turn out.

While reading the book it reminded me a lot of the film called 'Perfect High'. The main character of that film was a lot like Mickey (the main protagonist of this book) and the plot was similar as well. Now this doesn't mean I'm comparing those two to each other, however there were a lot of similarities yet different issues as well.

I read many young adult books that drug abuse was included, but there were always a minor issue, there were never the major concentration of the book, which I didn't mind. The deal with Heroine was that it is the main focus of the book and it's told from the POV of an addict.

One of the things that was interesting to me was that Mickey the main character is adopted, and I thought: ''Well here we go again, another book about a teenager wanting to find her biological parents no matter what, and every subject in the book being ignored and only focusing about finding her real parents''. Well folks, that was not case of this book at all. I mean, she was questioning every now and then to herself who her real parents might be and if they are good people or not, meaning if there have been drug useres like her as well and was it because of them that she became an addict.

Another main thing that bothered me through the entire novel was that no one bothered to ask Mickey if she’s using drugs outright, but everyone suspects she does... Even Carolina her best friend doesn’t even try. She knows something isn't the same with Mickey and instead of being concerned about her or talking to her about it, she creates a group chat with their teammates to discuss about Mickey and her newly developed strange behaviour. They were best friends since childhood and the way she started taking back steps from their friendship just because Mickey isn't 100% herself anymore made her an awful friend.

A character that I also want to include in this review is Edith: A woman who's over than 60 sells drugs to teenagers (and ''befriending'' them) to make her ends meet. The reason why I'm writing about her was because not her but the entire world what drugs does to a person, but she still keeps encouraging them to buy it. Plus, after everything that happened in the book there haven't been any mentioning if she's been caught by the police or etc.

In conclusion: The book does provide a good overview on how the opioid crisis is hitting everyone, how addiction breaks everything apart. And it’s well-written with a good story line.
If you enjoy YA books with fast paced storylines and serious topics I would definitely recommed this book! An intense yet very realistic story with a focus on substance abuse!