When a strange person from Valor National Banks shows up at Patsy's house and holds a gun to her in-debt mother's chest, Patsy agrees to their deal: save her life by becoming a bounty hunter assassin for the bank for five days, targeting ten people. When the ten people Patsy must kill are all somehow tied to her, she must repeatedly make the horrible choice of kill or be killed. When it comes to the final two people on the list, her ex-best friend and the brother of the guy she is somehow falling for, Patsy will have to make the toughest decisions of all.

HIT by Delilah S. Dawson is one of the darkest young adult books I've read. No matter how terrifying dystopian or post-apocalyptic novels are, it is the stories that are still in the end of a country or end of the world that make you want to crawl under the covers and hide. HIT's premise is horrifyingly realistic, revolving around the extreme control banks have over nations. This makes the setting of a silent upheaval in the middle of a normal neighborhood with 'rich' and poor areas turn into a nightmare scene that Dawson nails.

Patsy is the kind of protagonist I love: morally ambiguous, strong, big-hearted, and full of faults. Her emotions are realistic and sincere, and I easily found myself lost in her world and circumstances. I also love the insight given to each of the people on Patsy's bounty hunter list. They each represent acquiring large amounts of debt in different ways that are certain to get readers' minds spinning. The perfect dashes of romance also offer a deeper look at humanity and the conditions in which humans can form a connection and find someone they like.

Readers who can stomach serious, psychological questions should grab HIT immediately. Though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for something light, this is hands down one of my favorite books of the year. Delilah S. Dawson creates a world all too familiar with characters ready to show you their heart or shoot your own.