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Book Summary and Reviews of Love Is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Love Is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Love Is the Drug

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2014, 352 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Emily Bird was raised not to ask questions. She has perfect hair, the perfect boyfriend, and a perfect Ivy-League future. But a chance meeting with Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent, at a party for Washington DC's elite leads to Bird waking up in a hospital, days later, with no memory of the end of the night.

Meanwhile, the world has fallen apart: A deadly flu virus is sweeping the nation, forcing quarantines, curfews, even martial law. And Roosevelt is certain that Bird knows something. Something about the virus - something about her parents' top secret scientific work - something she shouldn't know.

The only one Bird can trust is Coffee, a quiet, outsider genius who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. And he believes in Bird. But as Bird and Coffee dig deeper into what really happened that night, Bird finds that she might know more than she remembers. And what she knows could unleash the biggest government scandal in US history.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Lost memories, a deadly pandemic flu and the children of D.C.'s elite come together in this sophisticated bio-thriller... Utterly absorbing. Ages 13 & up." - Kirkus

"The author of The Summer Prince (Scholastic, 2013) writes beautifully, but the convoluted premise can be tough to swallow, and the lyrical quality of her writing does not always mesh with the high-octane plot...Teens looking for a fast-paced tale with diverse characters will find it in Johnson's latest offering." - School Library Journal

"Watching Bird make her way through a world filled with dangers - biological, political, personal - and find not just love, but also herself, makes for rewarding reading." - Publishers Weekly

This information about Love Is the Drug was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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More Information

Alaya (pronounced ah-lie-ah) lives, writes, cooks and (perhaps most importantly) eats in New York City. Her literary loves are all forms of speculative fiction, historical fiction, and the occasional highbrow novel. Her culinary loves are all kinds of ethnic food, particularly South Indian, which she feels must be close to ambrosia. She graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with a BA in East Asian Languages and Cultures, and has lived and traveled extensively in Japan.

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