Sprawling and episodic ... Quinones also offers insightful chapters on our growing understanding of addiction ... The Least of Us does a fine job of detailing the devastation wrought by the synthetics that now dominate addiction. Alas, there may be too many stories. His tales of addicts and their families have a scattershot effect, losing their power as they pile up one on another. Several longer stories offer an in-depth account of situations but are told in interspersed instalments that are hard to follow. Even so, the author provides a terrifying close-up view of addiction and its toll in disparate communities ... The Least of Us confirms his place as a leading chronicler of an American nightmare.
Quinones once again dives deep into America’s drug culture, but this time he takes his investigation a step further to shine light on the ways that communities are coming together to fight addiction ... The chapters on neuroscience delivered some of the most shocking takeaways of the book ... Quinones loves a good story, and his excitement at meeting a new character leaps off every page. But I thought some chapters would have been better suited for Dreamland...and others cut altogether. Though some chapters feel like they stray from his central narrative, The Least of Us reads like the final puzzle piece to the mystery of opioids and their hold on America. Quinones finishes what he started in Dreamland by offering not only warnings for the future phases of the epidemic, but the beginnings of a new era of hope.
