Little Pills

Its not that this was bad in anyway, i just kinda failed to see the point? Like was i missing some big plot hole in this? Maybe i will have to read it again.

This was an intriguing perspective of how teens accidentally can become addicts, and just how those consequences come about.

Thanks Net Galley for the preview!

I enjoy books in this poetry/verse format but did not know from the description that this book would be this way. I found this very hard to read in an electronic format. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the quick pace of the book. However, I have a lot of problems with the content. I think it does a little too much romanticizing of drug use, stealing and selling drugs and I don't believe this message should be sent out to teens. I didn't like the ending-the vibe of alright you overdosed but everything is okay and you are grounded but you have your phone and can still text your dealer boyfriend. I completely disagree with the message that sends and feel like the book needs a disclaimer or an info paragraph about who to call when you are struggling with addiction or depression and cannot talk to your family. I think this book had an opportunity to turn into a teaching moment at the end and it really fell short.

I received a copy of Little Pills from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Because it was an e-pub file the formatting made it really difficult to read! But, overall I think the format told the story of Charlotte Navarro's struggle with addiction in a powerful way. It showed their struggle as they went to write their story. There was times I did struggle to read it, but I am glad I read it!

Little Pills felt like an attempt to recreate what Ellen Hopkins has done successfully so many times. As a big Hopkins fan, I rally wasn't that impressed with this one. It seems to be more juvenile, despite the fact that this book is about a high school girl addicted to Oxy. This was a short, fast read.

Writing the book in verse doesn't add anything and detracts from the book in my opinion. It also misses a lot of the nuance of addiction by being intentionally sparse. I didn't feel like this was a good look at the opioid crises, more like a morality tale about why taking drugs is bad. I didn't find the writing or story compelling.

The poems themselves weren't bad, but reading them on the ereader was really difficult as the format was terrible. The font was crazy small. That is what made reading this very difficult and I ended up giving up after awhile.

Brutal and beautiful. I don't typically enjoy novels in verse, but I liked this one. It manages to tell a full story that would probably sound more generic in a traditional YA style.

I love poetry story telling. If you are a fan of Ellen Hopkins Crank, Pills will have you turning page after page.

Little Pills is a story-in-verses that talks about drug addiction. The verses flowed perfectly, and I couldn't stop myself from finishing the book in an hour. It was so good.

I especially loved the ending, since it was so full of hope and it left me with a smile. Nothing can be better than knowing that you'd accompanied a character in their journey towards becoming a better person than they'd been.

In the limited time they got within the verses, the characters all managed to look whole and real, which I really appreciate. It was a joy to read the verses sporting such well crafted characters.

I really liked the way Little Pills picked up the topic of drug addiction in teens and turned it into a story with such a meaningful, not to mention hopeful ending.

Little Pills was insightful, enjoyable and real. And I loved every part of it.

Seventeen-year-old Charlotte Navarro starts taking pills and more pills until her sister hates her, she meets a dangerous boy, and she steals from her Gramma. Will she get help before it's too late for her and her friends?
"Little Pills" tells a provocative story about addiction and how it affects individuals, families and relationships. I read the book in an hour because I couldn't put it down. But it's a tough read. Any book about addiction, particularly with teens, troubles me since addiction has affected numerous loved ones. Plus, the writing doesn't flow sometimes and the story includes unnecessary details in places. However, this book is also an important read since it offers insight into addiction and its effects. For that reason, I can recommend "Little PIlls."

A powerful poetry book, Little Pills by Melody Dodds is the story of seventeen year old Charlotte Navarro, who is struggling in many areas of her life- constantly in detention in school, missing her older brother who is away in the army, fighting with her little sister and wishing her mother did not have to work so many hours to keep body and soul together. The only joys she has in her life are reading, her friend Alexis and her music. When she begins to take some of her grandmother's pain medication to take the edge off, it helps. Life feels like floating on a cloud, and her new boyfriend is only too happy to float along too, but when the pills begin to run out and tempers start to fray, Charlotte is brought back down to earth with a bang when she thinks her little sister's friend has overdosed.
Raw, powerful, emotional , this book had me hooked as easily as Charlotte got hooked on the oxy, I loved it's depiction of how addiction damages not just the addict but also their relationships with family and friends. It may be a short book, but it really says all that is needed. I know a book is something special when it leaves me feeling like the ending of this one did. To say more would be a spoiler, but I am sure that I will not be the only reader hoping against hope that Charlotte makes the right choice.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Charlotte is best friends with Alexis who has a troubled home life with her parents being drunk and arguing while Charlotte doesn't feel like she fits the family where her brother was always in trouble and now in the army. While she relies on the painkillers she started taking to make her feel better. There's also her little sister who's best friend admires Charlotte and looks up to get while her sister feels left out...



All about the danger of painkiller addiction, feeling lonely and lost without family around as well as being written in poetry form, this is a raw depiction of how addiction can start out and grow controlling especially when spurred on by others like Charlotte's boyfriend in the book. It was a gripping quick read and raises great awareness for health both physical and mental and how they can effect you.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Heartbreaking but important poetry/story for young adults about addiction and the dangers of drugs. Very quick read

There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with Little Pills, it just left me feeling like something was missing. I didn't really enjoy the dramatic narrative towards the end (how it would suddenly change to all caps and overusage of punctuation — I understand the idea behind it, but it didn't make me feel a sense of urgency as much as stronger phrasing would have), and the ending reminded me too much of the ending of Crank by Ellen Hopkins, which made it feel a little ripoff-y. Maybe I'm being unfair and wouldn't have felt that way if I hadn't read Crank, but it's hard not to compare the two a little bit.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with and arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is most definitely not a book for everyone.
It brings up some pretty touchy subjects, namely mental illness in the form of addiction. I appreciate how the author essentially wrote a cautionary tale of the impact addiction not only has on and individual, but on others around them, and how difficult it is to truly quit.
Discussing mental illness is very important and must be done in the right way, which I feel Dodds did very well.
Unfortunately, I'm not very into poetry and I there were many letters missing replaced with (? " ') etc. Not sure if that's because it was an arc or if that will also appear in the final copy.
I also felt like we weren't really able to get to know the characters very well since the book was so short, and consequently, I can't truly care for what happens to them after the book closes.

From the very first poem I knew I would love this story immensely.. It reminded me of Crank by Ellen Hopkins. This book was written in short free very poems all about a young woman who gets hooked on her grandmother's painkillers. I liked how this story shows the effect that the drugs take on not just the user but the family's as
well. I think that the poems helped take what could have been a very dark subject and made it a little bit more family friendly (if that's even possible). Very good book I liked the main character the most, probably because the whole story was about her and just mentions of others but it made the whole thing more interesting. I think it was like that because you could see what she was doing feeling etc so it gave you a better scoop on the story. This book is great for all ages even though its a teen read. Great read and I'm glad that I got the chance to check it out.

In a variety of different styles of prose, Little Pills tells a story of family, high school and addiction.

The book reads like an Ellen Hopkins book, with the styles of poetry and the text formatting changing from chapter to chapter. The subject matter is heavy, but told in a way that the target audience can relate to and, in my opinion, treated carefully enough that I would be comfortable recommending this to high-school aged readers. While the main character does romanticize the high of the drug, she also faces realistic consequences which are told using equally descriptive language.

What if your world was falling apart around you? What if you found a little pill (or 3 or 4) that could make you forget for a little while? This is a novel written in verse that tells Charlotte’s story of how something starts out feeling so good but can end up so badly. I think that the way this book is written I think it offers an opportunity for tweens and teens to access poetry that they can connect with, see its power as a way to tell a story, and also see drugs and their effect in a way that shows how insidious they can be. The end of the book has a strange feeling compared to the rest, but I think the very last poem shows the true power of addiction.

An interesting take on the spiral of drug abuse and the effects on family and ourselves. Like the story told in verse as it broke it up and made it readable without being too dark...but also not losing any of the emotional pull it needed.

Wonderful story written in verse about a high school girl and her struggle with oxycodone. It seemed like a very real story that a teen could go through. Very fast read and well worth it.