by Ruta Sepetys
I loved her previous book, Between Shades of Gray, so this has been on my list to read for a long time.
Josie Moraine lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the 1950s and wants out. She is the daughter of a brothel prostitute who really wants to go to college out east and start a new life for herself.
Josie is tough and haunted and vulnerable in turns; she is pulled between allegiance to her friends and her desire to escape the suffocating wold she’s a part of.
This book was intense and dark and moody and you root for some pretty unexpected characters. Sepetys finds the humanity in the midst of all of the grime and creates characters that have to be strong in some terrible circumstances.