12 must-read August YA book releases to close out your summer

Traitor – Amanda McCrina

Historical fiction is truly a rare breed of YA novel these days – and admittedly, I’m as guilty of gobbling up high fantasy trilogies as the next girl – but Amanda McCrina’s Traitor aims to change that. A World War II-set story about friendship, loyalty, and tough choices in unbearably difficult circumstances, this book is unlike anything else on our list.

Traitor follows the story of seventeen-year-old Tolya, a half-Polish/half-Ukrainian sniper in the Soviet Army and Aleksey, a young Ukrainian nationalist whose father was a celebrated freedom fighter. The perspective jumps between Tolya in 1944 following the Soviet Union’s liberation of Lwów and Aleksey three years earlier, immediately prior to the German invasion.

Thanks to a series of twists, the two eventually cross paths in 1944 and subsequent events involve everything from loss and betrayal to loyalty and friendship.

The official synopsis provides a bit more detail about what to expect.

"Poland, 1944. After the Soviet liberation of Lwów from Germany, the city remains a battleground between resistance fighters and insurgent armies, its loyalties torn between Poland and Ukraine. Seventeen-year-old Tolya Korolenko is half Ukrainian, half Polish, and he joined the Soviet Red Army to keep himself alive and fed. When he not-quite-accidentally shoots his unit’s political officer in the street, he’s rescued by a squad of Ukrainian freedom fighters. They might have saved him, but Tolya doesn’t trust them. He especially doesn’t trust Solovey, the squad’s war-scarred young leader, who has plenty of secrets of his own. Then a betrayal sends them both on the run. And in a city where loyalty comes second to self-preservation, a traitor can be an enemy or a savior—or sometimes both."

Traitor is available on August 25.