Waiting on Wednesday: Trafficked and The Gap Year

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we just can't wait to get our hands on!

This week's picks:

Trafficked by Kim Purcell

Goodreads' description:

"Hannah is an ordinary teenager growing up in Moldova until her parents are killed in a terrorist bombing. While she’s still mourning the loss, she gets an offer that sounds too good to be true: a job as a nanny for a Russian family in Los Angeles.

At first, it seems like her luck has finally turned around, but life with the Platonovs quickly spirals into a nightmare. Lillian, the mother, forces Hannah to work sixteen-hour days cleaning, and won’t let her leave the house. Sergey, the father, is full of secrets. And they refuse to pay Hannah.

Stranded in a foreign land with false documents, no money, and nobody who can help her, Hannah has become a modern-day slave. And the more Hannah unravels this family’s terrible secrets, the more her life—and her family back home—are in grave danger. Desperate and lonely, she reaches out to the boy next door. But in the end, the only one who can save Hannah is herself."

Looks dark and gritty, and touches on a rarely discussed but important topic. I don't know that I've read a YA novel before dealing with human trafficking.


The Gap Year by Sarah Bird

Goodreads' description:


"From the widely praised author of The Yokota Officers Club, a keenly felt, wonderfully written novel about love that can both bind family members together and make them free, set in that precarious moment before your child leaves home for college.

Cam Lightsey, lactation consultant, is a single mom, a suburban misfit who’s given up her rebel dreams to set her only child on an upward path.

Aubrey Lightsey, a pretty, shy girl who plays clarinet, is ready to explode from wanting her “real” life to begin.

When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idol of students and teachers alike, the fuse is lit. Aubrey metastasizes into Cam’s worst teen nightmare: full of secrets and silences, uninterested in college. Worse, on the sly she’s in touch with her father, who left when she was two to join NEXT!—a celebrity-ridden cult—where he’s a headline grabber. As the novel unfolds—with emotional fireworks, humor, and edge-of-your-seat suspense—the dreams of daughter, mother, and father chart an inevitable, but perhaps not fatal, collision . . ."


This sounds like it's an adult novel with potential for crossover appeal. I'm always on the lookout for books featuring college-aged protagonists!

What books are you waiting for?