I enjoyed this book! I love the history of New York, and the author does a good job bringing the reader to gilded-age Manhattan.
This is the second book that I've read from this author. Both were well-written and had some type of poison and murder as part of the plot.
This one involves a serial murderer, drug (opiate) addiction, and some surprisingly strange quack cures! I was really surprised by the ending. ( )

Wow did I dislike this book. I hated the characters and had multiple issues with the storyline. I would have DNF’d it within the first few chapters if it wasn’t for a book club. I plan to stay away from this author entirely. ( )

It's not a great sign if partway through a book, your reader stops to look it up online and says, "Oh, no it's not intended to be a young adult book." I've read some of Lydia Kang's work before and enjoyed it in a pulpy, historical mystery kind of way, and I hoped that Opium and Absinthe would fill that same niche. Sadly, it's nowhere near as strong as the previous book of hers I read.

It's set in Gilded Age New York where Tillie, member of a wealthy and overbearing family, develops an opioid addiction (remember, in the 1890s heroin was an over-the-counter cough medicine!) round about the same time that her elder sister is murdered in a manner bizarrely reminiscent of the hot new novel, Dracula. This scenario could be immense fun in the right hands!

Unfortunately, those hands are not Kang's. Pretty much everyone in this book has a case of the Stupids, and Tillie has the most advanced case of all. (There's one thing in particular she does near the end of the book that had me proclaim aloud, à la John Mulaney, "That's what I thought you'd do, you dumb fucking horse.") She's the kind of young female character that gets described as Spunky when really she's just massively irritating. ( )

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
When a book involves narcotics and a serial killer a la Coppola's Dracula making headlines in New York City in 1899, it is alluring. When it is written by Lydia Kang, and there is guarantee of a well researched atmospheric thriller, it is irresistible. ( )

Spooky, pulls you in. I enjoyed this read and the parallels between the opioid addiction crisis in society then and now is startling. ( )