12. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson
In the sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander finds herself accused of the grisly triple murders of her guardian, a reporter, and a researcher. Mikael Blomkvist is not convinced of her guilt and works to find out what really happened.
This book was just as good as the first in the series, although the ending definitely sets the story up for the third book in the series, making it necessary to read the next book to get the whole story.
13. Skin Tight, by Carl Hiaasen
This satirical novel from 1989 sends up plastic surgery culture and shock TV (with a TV show and star based on Geraldo Rivera). It was funny in parts, gruesome in others (typical of Hiaasen's adult fiction), and definitely went for the gross-out several times.
14. Making Bombs for Hitler, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
10-year-old Lida and her younger sister, Larissa, are captured by the Germans when Germany invades the Ukraine and sent to Germany. There they are separated, and Lida lies about her age in order to not be sent to a hospital (where children were used as involuntary blood donors for soldiers on the front and also used in medical experiments; few survived). Her small, nimble hands make her perfect for making munitions, so she is sent to make bombs in a factory. Throughout the ordeal, her determination to find her sister again keeps her going, and the kindness of the friends she makes and even a few Germans help keep her alive.
This is a very powerful book, and very engrossing. I could feel what the main character was going through, and I got so into the book, which I was reading backstage while waiting for my parts in the play I'm taking part in, that when a cannon was fired onstage I half-believed it was a bomb falling on the roof of the building I was in. (The sound of the cannon is always startling anyway, but it was doubly so while reading this book.)
