In Ecstasy
by Kate McCaffrey
Annick Press, 2009
ISBN 978-1-55451-174-7
$12.95, 254 pp, ages 14+
www.annickpress.com
“The world we live in is like quicksand—once you put your toe in, you’ve had it.” So says Sophie, Mia’s best friend for as long as either can remember. For Sophie and Mia, life revolves around the “in” crowd. Parties, fashion and boyfriends dominate their lives. When Mia, who feels herself to be in the shadow of the apparently more sophisticated Sophie, discovers the party drug Ecstasy she soon becomes trapped in the quicksand of escalating drug use. Sophie and Mia tell the story in short, alternating first person narratives. This technique serves to reveal incidents in each of their lives that the other is unaware of. As Sophie retreats from the drug scene and Mia becomes more enmeshed in it, their friendship starts to unravel. It is not until an acquaintance dies from a drug overdose and Mia suffers a sexual assault that Mia is brought back from the brink of self-destruction, and the way seems clear for reconciliation. This novel is definitely a “should read” for most teenagers and their parents. It depicts clearly the seductiveness of the drug scene for insecure young people—and what young person is not, in some degree, insecure?
This review is from Canadian Teacher Magazine’s November 2009 issue.
