She understands with sudden clarity that bravery has nothing to do with the absence of fear, but the response to it.Dear Fellow Sci-fi Fans,One of my favorite things about flu-virus apocalypse themes, is that it could so easily be reality. Human beings aren’t really all that hard to kill, we just camouflage how easily we die with how well we kill. Humans are great at killing what we perceive as threats. This is proven quite well in Love is the Drug.“Morality is something that falls from your poc...

This is an interesting YA novel to me because the synopsis set expectations that wasn’t really what the book was really about. It’s a lot of family drama and interpersonal/communication problems,,, but with the spectre of this really scary event where the protagonist can’t remember an evening. This event unfolding is paced alongside an outbreak and the relationship drama(s) unfolding, and so a lot of it feels like a bunch of B plots unfolding instead of an A plot with B plots. Once I recalibrate...

This review will be a short one because even after reading the entire book, and certain sections several times, I couldn't give you a precise answer about what this book was about. It has a lot going on. It's one big hot mess. This book has a lot to do with drugs and pharmaceuticals and it had me wondering if I needed to be high for all of the details to make sense. I had to be convinced more than once to push through and read this book, but it definitely wasn't worth it. There were moments of b...

So, I wrote a formal review of this book for the YA review group I am in, and I'm going to post it here, but first I want to clarify why I gave this book 2 stars and yet wrote a seemingly super positive review. This book was good. Objectively good. It was literary and complex and had an interesting character who evolved throughout the story...but I was just...so...bored while I was reading it. It took me LITERALLY two months to read this book because I couldn't motivate myself to pick it up. It'...

Stuff I Read - Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson ReviewSometimes it's strange how one gets a book. I've been meaning to read Johnson since I learned that she was one of the guests of honor at WisCon 2015, and bought the Summer Prince for just that reason, but haven't got around to reading that yet, and instead lucked my way into this book instead, which is a solid near-future science fiction with some old fashioned government conspiracy sprinkled over a high school drama filled with relatio...

Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksLove is the Drug is a thrilling YA science fiction book with a great romance. The only reason I think it’s not, technically, a “Romance Novel” is that in a romance novel I care more about romance than anything else. In this book, I cared about the romance, but really I just wanted the main character, Emily Bird to be happy, because that girl is MADE OF WIN.This book is set five minutes into the future. It’s just barely science fiction. Emily Bird is a Go...

Gripping conspiracy / mystery / high school coming of age novel with an opposites-attract romance subplot, about a young African-America woman from an elite Washington D.C. family. It was written by a woman of color, and it's narrated brilliantly for audio by Simone Missick who plays Misty Knight on Netflix's Luke Cage (and is also a WOC, if you don't know her). It's so good that I actually stopped listening to it at about 85% for weeks because I couldn't bear for it to end. I adore the main cha...

Emily Bird—Bird to her friends—is the viewpoint character of Alaya Dawn Johnson’s amazing young adult novel LOVE IS THE DRUG (Scholastic, 2014). Bird is an African-American teenaged-girl in her senior year at a prestigious Washington, DC, prep school. Bird has selected Stanford as her college of choice, much to her mother’s dismay. Emily’s parents are wealthy and prominent enough, and Bird’s grades and SAT scores good enough, to get her into any college she desires. Bird is borderline upper-crus...

I love this cover. *_*

this was just ok for me. I'm under a lot of stress so this may be a reflection on me rather than book. I will try to reread at a different time

Emily Bird is a scholarship student in a prestigious DC school, but her future is uncertain when she awakes in the hospital unable to remember why she's there. But there's more trouble to come: a deadly virus is spreading, putting the school in lockdown, and a Homeland Security agent is far too close for comfort. Bird's only solace is the school's conspiracy theorist and resident drug-dealer as they investigate what's happening around them. But there are those who'd rather Bird NOT remember what...

I wanted to love this book. But, it was tough to get through and I could not finish it. The novel lacks suspense and the action needed to propel the plot forward. It was slow and redundant.I applaud Johnson for her setting of Washington, DC (both NW and NE, with street and landmark mentions), her Black, young woman protagonist who is thoughtful and independent, and her diverse, supporting characters. I also like that Johnson mentions Spelman!Further, what the novel lacks in plot, it makes up for...

UGH. CHEMISTRY.Other than that, I really enjoyed this book. Emily Bird was sort of likable and I'm glad certain things didn't happen to her, (view spoiler)[like thanking god that she wasn't raped (hide spoiler)].Love Is the Drug is basically about Bird going to a party and meeting a stranger. Now we all know not to talk to strangers but hey, it was a party. However, the guy starts straight up stalking her and shit. To top it all off, there's a god damn plague happening too. I was not a fan of th...

This book is a murky thriller uneasily perched on a much better black-girl-in-D.C.-coming-of-age story. Emily Bird has lived in the shadow of her mother's expectations her whole life. Both of her parents are government scientists, they have a nice house in the nice part of town, she has perfect hair, she goes to an elite prep school in D.C., and the perfect (or is he?) boyfriend. She tries so hard to be perfect, to please her impossible to please mother, she's almost erased herself.Her mother ex...

This is a stunning book about identity and discovery against the backdrop of a global pandemic and a bourgeoning dystopia. It's the most literary conspiracy thriller I've ever read, with gorgeous language, increasingly high (and very personal) stakes, and gut-wrenching twists. The threats to Bird and the people she loves feel real and frightening, all while balancing world-shattering danger and the mundane — but equally weighty — horrors of navigating high school and finding your own path in lif...

I've had this in my TBR pile too long and as 2017 is my year of focused clearing of backlist books, I decided to give this one a go. Prep school senior, Emily Bird wakes up in a hospital after having been drugged to the point that her memory of the events of a night are gone and Washington DC is on the verge of full on outbreak crisis intervention and none of that is the worst news. I expected more intrigue and urgency given the global outbreak of a virus that's decimating the population with so...

I really wanted to like it, but my feelings towards Love Is the Drug are similar to the ones I had about The Doubt Factory - I like the premise and some elements of the plot, but overall it's a pretty boring, unsurprising, slow-moving thriller too overwhelmed by trivial and formulaic romance and family drama.

Emily Bird - Emily to most, Bird to the best - is a senior at one of the most prestigious high schools in the country. She doesn't entirely fit in, being one of the few black kids. She also doesn't fit in because she might be going along with her mother's plan to go to college (and thinking of Stanford for herself), but her real goal is to run a small shop. (Not that having a business degree wouldn't help with that, but it never comes up.)When LOVE IS THE DRUG opens, Bird is at a party with her

My thanks to NetGalley and Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.DNF at about 6%. What turned me off, the casual drug use and what seemed to be the H being the high school drug dealer. I'm not into glamorizing drug use. Yes, I know it happens with the high school age range, younger even. It doesn't need to be romanticized in YA reading material. Which is sad, as the pandemic with a possible Government conspiracy plot line could be a good hook, though

Review Copy: Bought from my local Barnes & NobleHaving loved Johnson’s “The Summer Prince”, I was really looking forward to “Love is the Drug.” I can’t say that I didn’t like it because it was a compelling read, moved at a fast pace, and I enjoyed Johnson’s lush writing. I think what makes me pause, and this is strictly a personal thing, is that I figured out the twist way before (like early in the book), so I was constantly waiting for the reveal and for Bird to discover the truth. The fact tha...