I recently finished Long Bright River by Liz Moore and feel compelled to tell you about it. This is not a book to enter into lightly and you will not feel any warm fuzzies when you finish. However, it is an important book about the opioid crisis and addiction in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The story is told from Mickey’s point of view. She is a police officer in Kensington whose mother died of an overdose when she was young. Mickey and her sister, Kacey, were close when they were young, but Kacey started using drugs in high school and the girls drifted apart. Mickey watches out for her sister as she travels the neighborhood in her patrol car, until, she realizes she has not seen Kacey for more than a month. There is also a serial killer in the neighborhood who is killing young women and Mickey begins questioning Kacey’s friends to find out who the killer might be and where Kacey has gone.

There are elements of mystery to this book, but it is so much more. It is a story about family, addiction, humanity, forgiveness and hope. Mickey’s story shines a light on how neighborhoods and families deal with addiction. I had a hard time starting another book after reading this one because it had such a weight to it…it was such an important read…I really needed to give it enough time to process.

I highly recommend this book. It’s timely, relatively local and truly an important read.

Check out this read in our eLibrary at https://lclibs.overdrive.com/ or using your Libby app. You can also request it for Curbside Service at https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/default.aspx….