Hey everyone! It has been a MINUTE. Life has once again become very overwhelming so I haven’t had the time (or truthfully the motivation) to post. But I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Roxy today, the newest novel from Neal and Jarrod Shusterman! Thank you to Walker Books for the opportunity to take part and for sending me a free copy of the book đ
From the team that brought you the New York Times bestselling Dry comes a riveting new thriller that proves when gods play games, even love is a lie.
The freeway is coming.
It will cut the neighbourhood in two. Construction has already started, pushing toward this corridor of condemned houses and cracked concrete with the momentum of the inevitable. Yet there you are, in the fifth house on the left, fighting for your life.
Ramey, I.
The victim of the bet between two manufactured gods: the seductive and lethal Roxy (Oxycontin), who is at the top of her game, and the smart, high-achieving Addison (Adderall), who is tired of being the helpful one, and longs for a more dangerous, less wholesome image. The wagerâa contest to see who can bring their mark to âthe Partyâ firstâis a race to the bottom of a rave that has raged since the beginning of time. And you are only human, dazzled by the lights and music. Drawn by what the drugs offerâtempted to take that step past helpful to harmfulâŚand the troubled places that lie beyond.
But there are two I. RameysâIsaac, a soccer player thrown into Roxyâs orbit by a bad fall and a bad doctor and Ivy, his older sister, whose increasing frustration with her untreated ADHD leads her to renew her acquaintance with Addy.
I haven’t had a chance to read this one yet but wow, how amazing does that concept sound?! Neal and Jarrod Shusterman seem to have the most limitless imaginations. I adored the Scythe trilogy and the cli-fi novel Dry, and I can’t wait to dive into this one.
Whether you’re as excited about it as I am, or you still need some convincing, you can get a taste of what the book will be like right now as I’m sharing an extract!
Ivy truly believes she would have left on her own. Even though sheâs never left a party before they released the proverbial hounds and threw everyone out. Believing something that you know is not true is Ivyâs superpower.
When they arrive home, she decides to walk in the door ahead of Isaac. She turns on the light, fully expecting to find their parents waiting for them in the dark. Thatâs how things work in this house. Itâs a three-stage progression. Stage one: her parents explode after realizing she snuck out the window. Stage two: they blame each otherâs parenting fails for seven to twelve minutes. Stage three: an hour of solitary brooding, where her father will retreat to his computer, while her mom invents household tasks that donât actually exist, like alphabetizing kitchen spices or pairing other peopleâs socks. Stage five: at least one of them will sit in the living room in the dark, monitoring every sound from outside and each passing headlight until Ivy comes home.
Since Isaac got her fairly early, it hasnât reached the darkened-room stage yet. Instead, her father steps out from the kitchen. Heâs already built up plenty of potential energy, and the look in his eyes tells Ivy itâs about to go kinetic.
âGood evening, Father,â Ivy says, trying to sound ironic and light, but instead it comes off as snarky. Well, the sooner she gets him yelling, the sooner this can be over.
Her mother comes out from the bathroom. Ah â so itâs an ambush. The only family member missing is Grandma, whoâs been living with them for the past year. Sheâs wise enough not to embroil herself in the drama.
âCare to explain yourself?â Ivyâs mother asks her, but looks to Isaac instead. Heâs an easier read than she is.
Ivy prepares to respond, but before she has the chance, Isaac blurts out, âI was on my way back from Shelbyâs and figured Iâd grab Ivy from the movies.â
Itâs not an unbelievable lie. That is, if Ivy werenât wobbling, still majorly buzzed. She wonders if they saw the Uber drop them off. Oh, the rabbit hole of explanations ahead.
Isaac tries to hide his limp as he crosses the room, but almost trips. Their father is there to support him. âYou okay?â
âI ⌠twisted my ankle at practice this afternoon. Itâs nothing.â But if thereâs anything that Ivy has learned, itâs that parents always know when youâre lying. Even if youâre just lying to yourself.
And so to prove his ankle is a non-issue, Isaac walks on it again, and he almost goes down. Ivy silently wonders if her boyfriendâs redeeming parts come anywhere close to outweighing his unredeeming ones.
âThat looks pretty badâŚâ their father says.
âIâm fine, Dad,â Isaac says with just enough exasperation. âIâll go ice it, okay?â
Then their mother zeroes in on Isaacâs forehead. âIs that blood?â
And although part of Ivy is glad that the interrogation has been turned entirely to Isaac, it also pisses her off that her brotherâs boo-boos have completely blasted Ivy out of her parentsâ minds.
âI went to a party,â Ivy says without flinching. âIsaac came to bring me home. Heâs like that because he beat up Craig.â
If she was going to tell the truth, she might as well make Isaac look good in the process and give their father the satisfaction of knowing that Craig not only got beaten up but by his son, no less.
And now the negative attention has turned back to Ivy. Their mother starts haranguing Ivy about broken promises and patterns of bad behavior until she exhausts herself and shakes her head woefully. Itâs the expression Ivy hates the most. That you-disappointed-us-again-and-guess-what? Weâre-not-even-surprised look.
âIvy, I honestly donât know what weâre going to do with you,â she says.
âWhy do you have to do anything? Why canât you just, for once, leave me alone?â
But they canât. She knows they canât. This is, after all, their job.
Then her father drops the boom. âWeâre making an appointment for you to see Dr. Torres.â
âNo!â says Ivy. âI am not a child â I will not go to a kiddie shrink!â Ivy would much rather choose her own humiliation than swallow theirs. Dr. Torres has a mural with Winnie-the-Pooh in a pharmacistâs robe.
âWell, youâre going to see someone. All this self-medicating isnât doing you any favors.â
Self-medicating. Ivy wonders when drinking with your friends became clinical. Ivy hates the idea of having to go see some sweater-vested pencil-neck âprofessionalâ with a cheaply framed diploma. But what if itâs the only way to avoid harder action? She knows a kid who knows a kid who got dragged out of their home in the middle of the night and taken to one of those forced labor camps for unruly teens. Would her parents do something like that to her? At this point in her life, she has no idea.
Isaac has slipped away from the scene. She hears him in the kitchen getting ice, but their fridge has a sadistic ice dispenser that hurls ice everywhere but where you want it to go. She finds Isaac kneeling in pain, trying to pick ice up off the floor. She helps him gather the remaining cubes and put them into a Ziploc.
âShoulda used crushed,â she said. âOr a bag of frozen peas.â
âCrushed would be a bigger mess, and peas would be a waste of food â and you know how Mom is about wasted anything lately.â
âYeah,â says Ivy. âEspecially wasted me.â
She hopes it might bring a smile from Isaac, but it doesnât. Maybe heâs just in too much pain. âTheyâll get over it by morning,â he says. âThey just needed to vent.â
Maybe so. But Ivyâs not sure sheâll be over it. And that doesnât just mean the hangover.
Well, has that convinced you to pick up Roxy? If you still need a push, check out the other stops on the tour to see what other readers are thinking of it and to read more extracts from the book!
Reading Between The Notes 