More One-Night Stand (Alones) For You to Binge This Weekend

When Liv throws one ill-timed punch during an important game, she loses everything: her private school scholarship, her softball team, and all her friends. Now she has to transfer to the public school, where she’ll she her ex-boyfriend every day and have to convince the softball team of the girl she punched to give her a chance. So when Grey, the injured star quarterback of the football team, proposes that she be his temporary replacement with the promise that he’ll get her on the softball team in the spring, she accepts the challenge. Sarah Henning’s contemporary debut is the breath of fresh air I just let out and never realized I was holding in. Equal parts fun, classic YA romance and refreshing, female centered sports story, Throw Like a Girl is an ideal speedy Friday night read.  

Hanneke looks for small ways to rebel against the Nazi regime in WWII, mostly through finding and delivering illegal black market goods to customers in Amsterdam. But on a regular routine delivery, she’s shocked when she’s asked to, instead, find a person—a Jewish teenager hiding from the Nazis who’s vanished without a trace from a secret room. Soon, Hanneke is sucked into a web of mysteries, revelations, and horrors of the Nazi regime that will test her bravery and compel her to open her eyes. Monica Hesse is the QUEEN of well-researched, intricate, powerful prose. If you’ve already finished every Ruta Sepetys book you own, try The Girl in the Blue Coat, which I promise will fulfill your need for exciting (and accurate) historical fiction.

Devon dreams about two things: the stars, and the boy who broke her heart last summer. It’s senior year, and she’s determined to graduate and get into the best astrophysics college program. But things change when Ashton shows up on the first day of school, nearly a year after she last saw him. Can Devon forgive him and open her heart up to him again? Or are they doomed to repeat history? Often people ask me, “Hey Natali, what’s a book that will simultaneously destroy me and heal me at the same time?” When the Stars Lead to You is that book. Why this one? Just rewind back in time to me in my bed at 2AM last winter, SOBBING, because I went on a 384-page emotional rollercoaster ride watching this proud biracial, smart, deeply caring girl fall in, and out, and back in love again. This can be YOU next weekend!

When Leigh Chen Sanders’ mother died by suicide, Leigh is only certain about one thing: the day she died, her mother turned into a bird. Convinced the bird wants Leigh to travel to Taiwan, Leigh goes to meet her maternal grandparents that she’s never met. As she unravels family secrets, reconciles with the past, and forges ahead to the future, Leigh’s life will change and her understanding of grief, love, and art will transform. If you want something to really sink your teeth into, try The Astonishing Color of After! I love how intricately detailed and rich Emily Pan’s descriptions are: they’re so beautiful, I could read them for hours. I could also go on about the frank and truthful conversations about mental health, the heart-achingly sweet slow-burn romance, and the amazing Asian rep. But that would take all night—and I’d rather you spend all night READING THIS BOOK.

Magpie has had the worst year of her life: she caught her father having sex with her aunt, her mother’s an alcoholic, her sister abandoned her, and now people call her a slut after what happened the night of Brandon Phipp’s party. So Magpie retreats to her yellow notebook, where she writes up a place where none of this happened. In fact, she imagines this world so strongly that a portal opens up in her backyard to a world called Near. Near is perfect, where Magpie can have anything she wants. And soon, the thing Magpie desires most of all is revenge. If you know me, you also know that I would climb the tallest mountain and walk a thousand miles to sing Katrina Leno’s praises. It’s so rare to find well-written books about unapologetic female rage. Reading You Must Not Miss feels cathartic, and it’s also a super-fast, addictive read. Although maybe you don’t want to read this in one sitting…because then you’ll have to wait until fall for Katrina’s next contemporary thriller, Horrid…