Daily Archives: May 14, 2026

AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler

After her brother’s death from a congenital heart defect, twelve-year-old Lucy is not prepared to be the new kid at school–especially in a grade full of survivors of a shooting that happened four years ago. Without the shared past that both unites and divides her classmates, Lucy feels isolated and unable to share her family’s own loss, which is profoundly different from the trauma of her peers. Lucy clings to her love of math, which provides the absolute answers she craves. But through budding friendships and an after… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a brother from a congenital heart defect
  • School shooting massacre (aftermath, theme)

Afterlight by Rebecca Lim

Since her parents died in a freak motorbike accident, Sophie Teague’s life has fallen apart. But she’s just enrolled at a new high school, hoping for a fresh start. That’s until Eve, a beautiful ghost in black, starts making terrifying nightly appearances, wanting Sophie to be her hands, eyes and go-to girl. There are loose ends that Eve needs Sophie to tie up. But dealing with the dead might just involve the greatest sacrifice of all.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Attempted sexual assault & sexual harassment
  • Domestic violence
  • Death of parents in a motorcycle accident
  • Bullying

Afterlife by Melissa Jennings

Afterlife is a collection of poetry about catharsis, self-love, and self-revolution. Afterlife is a journey from the darkness to the light again, and again, and again.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression & anxiety
  • Intrusive thoughts & trauma flashbacks
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm

Abandon Me: Memoirs by Melissa Febos

In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection–with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional intimate partner abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Suicidal ideation

A + E 4ever by I. Merey

Asher Machnik is a teenage boy cursed with a beautiful androgynous face. Guys punch him, girls slag him and by high school he’s developed an intense fear of being touched. Art remains his only escape from an otherwise emotionally empty life. Eulalie Mason is the lonely, tough-talking dyke from school who befriends Ash. The only one to see and accept all of his sides as a loner, a fellow artist and a best friend, she’s starting to wonder if ash is ever going to see all of her….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Statutory rape
  • Bullying

99 Red Balloons by Elisabeth Carpenter

When eight-year-old Grace goes missing from a sweetshop on the way home from school, her mother Emma is plunged into a nightmare. Her family rallies around, but as the police hunt begins, cracks begin to emerge. What are the secret emails sent between Emma’s husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is Emma really as innocent as she seems? Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees Grace’s picture in the newspaper. It’s a photograph that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional child neglect
  • Self-harm & suicidal ideation
  • Drugging
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a child (off-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion (bomb)
  • Animal death (pet)

Three Willows by Ann Brashares

Polly has an idea that she can’t stop thinking about, one that involves changing a few things about herself. She’s setting her sights on a more glamorous life, but it’s going to take all of her focus. At least that way she won’t have to watch her friends moving so far ahead. Jo is spending the summer at her family’s beach house, working as a busgirl and bonding with the older, cooler girls she’ll see at high school come September. She didn’t count on a brief fling with a cute boy changing her entire summer. Or feeling embarrassed by her middle-school friends. And she didn’t count on her family at all. Ama is not an outdoorsy… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with alcoholism including hospitalisation for alcohol poisoning

After You Died by Dea Poirier

Bisexual teen, Asher remembers nothing from the night in 1968 that the police found him covered in his girlfriend’s blood. He knows he’d never hurt anyone, least of all her. But the only person who believes him is his twin sister. He’s sentenced to five years at the Dozier Reform School. And like Asher’s memory, Dozier hides violent secrets of its own. Juvenile boys serving time for everything from truancy to murder are hidden away in the sinister School for Boys. Those who manage to escape its bounds with broken bones and scars are the lucky ones. Asher’s afraid he may end… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Domestic abuse
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Murder
  • Torture

After Care by L.B. Dunbar

Breast cancer survivor Edie Williams is ready to live. Divorced. Mother of two. She’s planned the vacation of a lifetime for a reboot, only to encounter an awakening adventure—Tommy Carrigan. Manager of the band Collision, Tommy Carrigan has his plate full. Independent. Carefree. He’s on an annual holiday with his band family, when the unexpected happens—Edie Williams. Love might be just what the doctor prescribed, but can it survive the world of rock-n-roll?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Spousal infidelity recounted
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption (on-page)
  • Spouse with alcoholism recounted
  • Protagonist in remission for breast cancer
  • Death of a relative from suicide by overdose mentioned

*Context: : Mentions of a adult-minor relationship involving an eighteen-year-old high school student and a 22-year-old man.

Affiliations, Aliens, and Other Profitable Pursuits by Lyn Gala

A desire for status has brought Ondry and Liam to a human world to trade, but dealing with humans has brought up all the old pain in Liam’s heart. Even though Ondry would do anything to protect his beloved palteia, he doesn’t know how to protect Liam from himself. Worse, Ondry isn’t sure how to shield Liam from the shifting politics on the Rownt ship where the Calti Grandmothers are nothing like the ones they left behind on the planet.With everything in their lives changing, Ondry and Liam have only each other… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Rape (off-page) & child sexual abuse recounted
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & trauma
  • Death of a parent (off-page)
  • War themes
  • Animal attack (off-page)