by Nico Walker
First published 2018
The narrator falls hard for Emily, but when he loses her, he enlists in the Army as a medic. In Iraq, he watches fellow soldiers huff computer duster and abuse painkillers while many die around him. He returns home with severe PTSD, only to find Emily again as the opioid crisis tears through the Midwest. Both spiral into addiction together. As their habit grows expensive and their money runs out, the narrator discovers what feels like his only option: robbing banks. Walker delivers a story that moves at breakneck speed through love, war, and crime, balancing dark humor with unexpected tenderness as it follows two people who drift through the world but remain connected to each other.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, addiction, crime, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Iraq, Midwest
Period: 21st-century
319 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, mental-illness, violence