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This is a good book to read when you find yourself in a very specific income bracket (significantly more than you grew up in; slightly more than you'd expected; enough to be morally uncomfortable; not quite enough to take the edge of your moral discomfort via redistribution), which is likely where you are if the synopsis of this book appealed to you enough to read it. Otherwise it might seem a bit self-indulgent.
Kudos to the Monomythical newsletter for convincing me to pick up a self-published book that is also based in a creative commons-shared wiki-based internet universe thingy (I won't even pretend to understand how those spaces work as it's not my scene).
This is excellent sci-fi horror that reminded me a lot of Jeff Vandermeer's Area X books - somewhat similar scares, with a love story at the centre, and metaphorically potent.
I really want everyone alive to read this. The title might suggest that this will be a how-to for drug use, but it's a powerfully revisionist book that completely annihilates a lifetime of indoctrination that we're all put through.
There were several moments in the book when I felt acutely embarrassed of my own ignorance, especially being an ex harm reduction professional with a long-standing interest in the subject. Thankfully, Hart talks very openly about his own history of ignorance and participation in the state's demonisation of drugs, and how his mind had been changed by his work in neuroscience and the science of addiction.
I think most people who aren't drug users would find this book to be an effective exercise in empathy with those who do. But most of all, it's necessary to dispel the myths that we're told about drugs and the people who take them.
I really loved Hart's tone too and am putting him on top of my fantasy celebrity dinner party (with all the drugs) list.
