Heroine tells the raw and honest tale of Mickey’s slow descent into opioids after a terrible car accident leaves her in insurmountable amounts of pain right as the next softball season is coming up. Mickey is determined to heal before the season starts, but as her pain and the pressure increases, so does her dependence on Oxy. She quickly falls into a deepening spiral of need and regret, of pressure and pain, and Heroine explores every dark corner of it.

This book is not easy to read, but it was so so worth it. It honestly provides a whole other perspective on addiction, and it ultimately feels extremely realistic. It doesn’t hide the consequences of drugs nor glorify them, McGinnis just provides everything without too much focus on painting Mickey as either innocent or wrong.

First off, McGinnis did a fantastic job of making Mickey a fully fleshed and real character while still making her relatable/understandable. Her worries very quickly become our own, and we soon to rationalize her drug use right alongside her, as we just want to see her succeed too. It made the reading experience quite startling to step away from, as when you leave Mickey’s head, your perspective on her reasoning changes. You realize that there may be other ways to solve her issues than drugs, but when you’re in her head, it so easily becomes the only easy option, and you get why she goes down the path she does. It’s also terrifying, watching her slowly spiral further and further into the world of drugs, seeing her move to harder drugs as well as watch her rationalize more lying, more stealing, and more drug use. It’s overall quite eye-opening in terms of addicts, and it honestly gave me a whole new perspective on addiction and people who suffer from it.

The story also follows a realistic path in my opinion. The drug use isn’t sudden, and Mickey’s rationalization that it’s for everyone around her (in order to not let them down etc) sticks around a long time until she finally admits she’s an addict. There’s also minimal romance and drifting away from friends, as it becomes more and more clear where Mickey’s focus is beginning to lie. Overall, it’s a deep, dark, and truthful depiction, at least from what I can attest to.

Mindy McGinnis just keeps breaking my heart with these traumatic characters and their broken stories, and Heroine was no different. It hurt, but it was still wonderful to read, in the sense that reading McGinnis’s works can be. I definitely will be moving to more of her books in the future.