New Book Alert: Addictarium: The War Stories Chronicles by Nicole D'Settemi; A Disturbing, Confusing but Unforgettable Novel of Addiction and Recovery

New Book Alert: Addictarium: The War Stories Chronicles by Nicole D'Settemi; A Disturbing, Confusing but Unforgettable Novel of Addiction and Recovery

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Nicole D'Settemi's Addictarium is different from your typical novel about drug addiction. Most of the novels focus on the addict, how they got started, and why they turned to drugs. The Reader will learn about their addiction and how it destroyed the addict and their friends and family. Then there will be the obligatory near-death rock bottom moment when the addict realizes that they need help and enter recovery where they then emerge a better stronger person who now vows to live a clean drug free life.

Well Addictarium is not that kind of book. Nicole D'Settemi's disturbing and at times confusing book begins where most books about addiction ends. It's not so much about the addiction as it is about the recovery from it and what happens when the people who are assigned to help the addict recover are worse than they are.

Danielle Martino is a heroin addict. The prologue and first chapter speed through her addiction where she moves from overachiever upper middle class student to troubled, sick, and paranoid addict in the space of a few paragraphs.

There are some pretty graphic moments such as when she turns to prostitution to feed her addiction and when the effects turn her partially blind before she decides to seek recovery.

Mostly, D'Settemi focuses on Danielle's discovery of The Village, an upscale rehabilitation center which promises compassionate care to its patients. Finding nothing to lose except her addiction, Danielle checks in.


Most of the book deals with the power struggles Danielle has with the counselors and other patients as well as her longing to return to heroin. Many of the patients have hang ups of their own. After Danielle breaks up with her boyfriend on the outside and her best friend leaves, she becomes involved with Sasha, a female patient in a romance that is emotional, moving, but at the same time tense and borderline obsessive. Things get even more heated when Sasha leaves and the feelings of abandonment consume Danielle to the point where she wants to start using again.

As bad as the patients are, the staff of the Village are just as disturbing. There are many restrictions and rules which the patients question but are ordered to follow. Many of the counselors treat the patients with contempt and disdain rather than real concern for their well-being and recovery. Compassionate care apparently doesn’t really exist in this nightmare rehab dojo.

Of particular notice are the behaviors of two counselors. One, Nehemiah takes advantage of female patients before he gets fired for having a sex and drugs ring on the side. There are also other staff members who break boundaries with the patients.

While Nehemiah and some of the others are clear jerks, even the most helpful can be the most harmful. Danielle becomes obsessively infatuated with her primary counselor Angel. She thinks about him when he isn't around. She constantly worries about what he would think. He is trying to help her recover from her addiction but she confuses his concern for love.

Rather than let her down gently, Angel encourages her behavior to the point that after he leaves his position, the two embark on an affair. There are some genuinely sweet moments where Danielle wants to give up and Angel encourages her to keep going.

However, they are tempered with the realization that their romance began when Angel was Danielle's counselor and that while Danielle pursued him, she was mentally ill. Angel should have resisted. It was on him to end it. Every time they are together, this Reader wants to scream “Dude! Boundaries!”

Also while he is more tender than Nehemiah, Angel is still using her in his own way and comes off no better than he is. He does not respect the counselor-patient link and believes that he is doing right by becoming involved with her. She needs someone to take care of her and he needs someone to take care of. It makes you wonder if they would still be together, if she recovers and he isn't her caregiver.


With patients,staff, and counselors looking out for themselves it's no wonder that Danielle has a hard time with her recovery. It is also no surprise when she is given a bag of heroin and succumbs once more to her addiction finding no acceptance in sobriety.

There are parts in the narrative that are confusing possibly purposely so. Characters overlap. The setting moves from the Village to the streets without any meaningful transition. It's hard to follow the actions of the plot when the setting and characters are lost.

This makes Danielle comes across as an Unreliable Narrator which could possibly be the point. Do the other patients have emotional problems or does Danielle see them that way? Are the staff really that cold or is Danielle resisting their attempts to help them justifying it in her head that they never wanted to help? Nehemiah was fired but was he a pervert or did Danielle believe patient's gossip and innuendo that he was? What about Angel? Did he really overstep his boundaries as a counselor or did Danielle believe he did?

Because of the confusion within Danielle's narration, the ending where she returns to therapy is ambiguous. Will she finally recover or will she fall into the same pattern and regress? The only one who can answer those questions is Danielle herself.