Seventeen-year-old Audie broke free from her foster-care, minimum-wage-job, homeless-teen life to become a full-time lab rat, signing up for as many clinical trials of experimental drugs and cosmetics as she can endure. In addition to meeting her own living expenses, she is saving up for the trip of a lifetime with her boyfriend, Dylan, who is recovering from cancer. When her friend Charlotte suggests that they max out their participation by gaming the system for a big payday before quitting and moving on, Audie’s in. Charlotte dies, and Audie is forced to face some uncomfortable truths, like the fact that maybe she does not really do all those drug trials for real money, and that maybe, just maybe, she is in a psych ward, and the drugs she is testing have a return to reality as an unfortunate side effect. As the lines between Audie’s reality and her delusions fuzz, so does the ethical simplicity of the novel: on the one hand, human trials are necessary for the development of new medications and products, but on the other hand, using people who are not necessarily in full command of their mental faculties of the worst kind of exploitation. Carleson keeps the situation nicely ambiguous through Audie’s razor-sharp interrogation of a dissatisfying real life played off against the empowerment, community, and enjoyment she feels in her delusions. Any reader desire for moral simplicity will fade in light of the discussions that will no doubt be sparked by Audie’s personal dilemma, as well as by readers’ own use of products and medications that had to be tested on somebody before, they came to market.Tentukan buku dan penulis dari sinopsis ini!