Editorial Content for Placebo Junkies

Meet Audie: Professional lab rat. Guinea pig. Serial human test subject. For Audie and her friends, “volunteering” for pharmaceutical drug trials means a quick fix and easy cash. Sure, there’s the occasional nasty side effect, but Audie’s got things under control. If Monday’s pill causes a rash, Tuesday’s ointment usually clears it right up. Wednesday’s injection soothes the sting from Tuesday’s “cure,” and Thursday’s procedure makes her forget all about Wednesday’s headache. By the time Friday rolls around, there’s plenty of cash in hand and perhaps even a slot in a government-funded psilocybin study, because WEEKEND! But the best fix of all is her boyfriend, Dylan, whose terminal illness just makes them even more compatible. He’s turning 18 soon, so Audie is saving up to make it an unforgettable birthday. That means more drug trials than ever before, but Dylan is worth it. No pain, no gain, Audie tells herself as the pills wear away at her body and mind. No pain, no gain, she repeats as her grip on reality starts to slide…

 

Being a high school student who has taken an English class every single year of her academic career, I have been told to analyze, analyze and analyze even more. I have it drilled into me that there is nothing better I can do than break apart every single little sentence in a piece of writing and analyze how and why it was formed. Seldom am I encouraged to think about the book in a larger sense; in fact, I have never had an English teacher tell me to read a piece of writing without giving me further instruction to annotate. I have unconsciously brought this “skill” into what I read for pleasure as well; I unknowingly look for things such as tone and syntax while reading. While this is not bad necessarily bad, it often stops me from reading the book for pleasure itself. With PLACEBO JUNKIES, I was intent on reading the book for pleasure and the thought-provoking plot helped me do just that.

 

 

The construction of the overall story is genius. Anytime something happened, no matter how insignificant it seemed, I was invested in it. There is so much intensity that I developed a sort of tunnel vision --- I could only think about what was happening at that moment. My mind never wandered to any other event that had happened before, nor did I wonder about what would happen later. I was fully focused in on that one moment, which made the book very memorable for me.

 

All while reading the book, I tried to identify its tone (again, the English classes). This proved to be easier said than done. Sometimes, Audie seemed almost innocent. She seemed to possess a naive optimism that reminded me of a child. However, most of the time, Audie talked in a way that indicated she had seen and done much more than an average 17-year-old. Her words spoke volumes about her struggles and how she landed into the “job” she is in now. Therefore, there was no set tone to the book; it jumped from one to another, contradicting, one. Upon further reflection, this shift in tone actually helped create a nice transition to the climax of the book. Also, major kudos to the author because I was left flabbergasted at how the book ended, which doesn’t happen often.

 

Reading for something bigger than textual analysis helped me get a better understanding of the overall arc of the plot. The interesting plot kept me on my toes and I thoroughly enjoyed the book from beginning to end.