Mellie is a good girl from a good family, and Lise is the outspoken feminist friend who shows her that good people can outgrow their family’s beliefs. When Mellie is raped and becomes pregnant, she grapples with the trauma of the rape and then the panic of what to do next. She can’t tell anyone, because they will assume she’s a heathen who is lying about the rape only because she got pregnant. She visits clinics that lie to her. She hides from everyone and everything — except her journal. It’s heart-wrenching. I cried and screamed and stayed up past my bedtime to finish reading her story.

★ Disclosure: I work for the publisher and I’d love this book even if I didn’t work on it.

From the Best Books We Read in July 2018 at Book Riot.