With Memorial Day behind us and the weather getting unbearably and wonderfully hot, most of us would say we’re heading into summer. And whether that means lounging on the beach or hiding inside in the air conditioning to you, to me it means you’re going to need something good to read.

Guess what? I found just the right book for you. For everyone really. It’s my favorite thing I’ve read in a long time, which is saying something coming from someone who finished the Harry Potter series in a week.

Here it is:

Hostage Three by Nick Lake. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I would say,

“It’s a pirate story from modern times, with a soul-crushing romance and it’s completely different from everything else I’ve ever read.”

Okay, so technically it’s a YA book. But this book breaks past all of the categories you try to put it in. If you like reading to find a message, it can really make you think. It brings to life the unfair wealth gap between developed and developing countries, shows you how blurry the line between right and wrong can be, and makes you want to live with purpose. If you want relatable characters, protagonist Amy and her at odds family fit the bill perfectly. And if you just want to read for the romance, then prepare to melt on the inside.

I’m usually a sci-fi/fantasy sort of girl. I usually hide realistic fiction books in my sister’s room and pray I never see them again. But Lake’s Somalian pirate crew satisfied my taste for adventure perfectly. To be completely honest, perfect is the only way I know how to describe Hostage Three. There are perfect bits of humor and perfect scenes of drama and then that perfect, perfect ending that left me like this:

Now that I’ve set it up like this, I’m sure someone’s going to be disappointed. But even if you don’t wind up thinking it’s the best thing you’ve ever read (hint: me), you’re definitely going to enjoy it. It’s that sort of story.