Dime by E.R. Frank (2015)

Holy cats, this book took my heart and ripped it out and stomped on it on the ground. 

Dime is a 14-year-old girl who has been bounced around the foster system for years. She finds a home with Daddy and his 'girls', who are underage prostitutes. This book is hard to read and anguishing, but man, Frank (a child psychologist and social worker) does a beautiful job of telling Dime's story without exploitation or gratuitousness. 

The story is told through Dime's POV and the note that she is trying to write to persuade someone to help. She's a reader and there's a strong literary bent through the book. The story itself, which takes a clear-eyed look at human trafficking, is incredibly eye-opening and horrifying and shows many facets of "the life." When Daddy picks up Lollipop (an 11-year-old) and adds her to his stable, it gets even more awful. But super important to read and to know and this book absolutely felt like a call to action for me. Beautifully done.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke (ed.) (2015)

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this collection of YA short stories, which are spooky stories that are all inspired by various works of horror movies, fiction and even songs. Not a single dud in this collection and some of the stories are legit spooky. And each story names its references (in upside down print at the end of the story). So fun to figure them out while reading. 

I adored so many of them, but the standout was Sleepless by Jay Kristoff (inspiration: Psycho!). I'm going to name all the authors, though, cause they're ALL good: Nova Ren Suma, Carrie Ryan, Cat Winters, Leigh Bardugo, Megan Shepherd, Danielle Paige, April Genevieve Tucholke, Jonathan Maberry, Jay Kristoff, Stefan Bachmann, Marie Lu, McCormick Templeman, A.G. Howard, and Kendare Blake.

Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet (2018)

Oh my goodness, I loved this collection of YA short stories which are all stories of 'meeting cute.' 

I love the fabulous diversity of the characters: gay, straight, trans, all colors. It's just a gorgeous and romantic little collection that will restore your faith in humanity and love.

Listing every single one here because they are all worthy of mention and LOVE. 

Siege etiquette / Katie Cotugno

Print shop / Nina LaCour
Hourglass / Ibi Zoboi
Click / Katharine McGee
The intern / Sara Shepard
Somewhere that's green / Meredith Russo
The way we love here / Dhonielle Clayton
Oomph / Emery Lord
The dictionary of you and me / Jennifer L. Armentrout
The unlikely likelihood of falling in love / Jocelyn Davies
259 million miles / Kass Morgan
Something real / Julie Murphy
Say everything / Huntley Fitzpatrick
The department of dead love / Nicola Yoon

Force of Nature by Jane Harper (2018)

Five women and five men go out into the Australian bushland on a corporate adventure team-building retreat, but only four of the women return. 

A couple of detectives with a vested interest in the missing woman join the search and investigation. Everyone has something to hide and what happened to the missing woman is complicated on a Who Shot Mr. Burns level (basically everybody). Very readable and enjoyable, though.

And apparently, it's the second in a series that starts with Dry and features investigator Aaron Falk. So I'll be requesting that one now!

Prince in Disguise by Stephanie Kate Strohm (2017)

Dusty, her mom, and her sister are in Scotland where her sister is preparing to marry a Scottish aristocrat that she met on a reality tv show. The wedding preparations are also being filmed for a future television show. Dusty meets adorable groomsman Jamie and the sparks fly. But Jamie has a secret, of course. 

The charm in this novel is in the quippy but realistic dialogue, and in the fully realized relationships between Dusty's family, the new in-laws, and Heaven, Dusty's best friend who the producers of the show brought over from America to add a little 'color' to the show.

The Singing Bone by Beth Hahn (2016)

A convicted killer's imminent parole forces a woman to confront the nightmarish past she's spent twenty years escaping.

Alice is a professor in present-day 1999, but when she was a teenager in 1979, she and her friends got involved with a mysterious group headed by the charismatic Jack Wyck. Things ended badly and most of the people involved with Wyck are either in jail or dead. A documentary filmmaker is trying to get in touch with her and other survivors to make a film about the situation and things begin stirring again. 

Very atmospheric, and the story skillfully moves between the time settings. Creepy and good.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018)

Subtitled: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. 

McNamara, who passed away a few years ago at age 46 and was married to Patton Oswalt, was obsessed with her DIY search to find the identity of the East Area Rapist in California. Very absorbing until the very end, where her assistants tried to piece together the remainder of her search after her death. She was a terrific writer, and it's a chilling story. Perfect for the myriad fans of true crime podcasts and amateur sleuthing. 

Meet Me at Beachcomber Bay by Jill Mansell (2017)

I always adore Jill Mansell and sometimes you just need to read a book about charming people falling in love, despite a few hiccups, in a beautiful British location. 

Let's see: There's a girl with a weird name, who has a contentious relationship with her stepsister, who meets a man on a plane, but loses contact, then he shows up as her stepsister's boyfriend but there's still attraction. So girl with weird name pretends to be dating her boss. who has his own hopeless (seeming!) love affair, PLUS a whole thing with his birth mom. Everything turns out beautifully, sigh.

CLEMENCY! The name is Clemency. Well, yeah.

The Stars In Our Eyes by Julie Klam (2017)

Subtitled: The Famous, the Infamous and Why We Care Too Much About Them. 

Pretty fun look at our obsession with celebrities. I think I've read an embarrassing number of books about celebrity culture, but Klam's stories about her own personal celebrity worship are relatable and enjoyable. Although this book gets a bit name-droppy, with celebrity friends describing their own brushes with fame. Dishy, fun,  and light vacation reading.

See also: But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn (2006)

The Woman Who Wasn't There by Robin Fisher Gaby, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. (2012)

Subtitled: The True Story of an Incredible Deception

There a million stories that came out of the World Trade Center attacks--and not all are true. Tania Head's story of surviving the 9/11 attacks was gripping and horrifying and led to her becoming a celebrity in the survivors' rights movement. Only problem with her story? It wasn't true.

Gaby and Guglielmo tease out this compelling tale with fascinating inside detail. Intriguing, satisfying, and a very fast read.