rachel @ typed truths

He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander

He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander

He says: Omar “T-Diddy” Smalls has got it made—a full football ride to UMiami, hero-worship status at school, and pick of any girl at West Charleston High. She says: Football, shmootball. Here’s what Claudia Clarke cares about: Harvard, the poor, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the staggering teen pregnancy rate, investigative journalism . . . the list goes on. She does not have a minute to waste on Mr. T-Diddy Smalls and his harem of bimbos.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Lesbomisia & lesbomisic slurs
Coming out themes
Revenge pornography
Teen pregnancy
Abortion discussed
Gun violence

Indivisible by Daniel Aleman

Indivisible by Daniel Aleman

Mateo Garcia and his younger sister, Sophie, have been taught to fear one word for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade. Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they’re hard workers and good neighbors. When Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken by ICE, he realizes that his family’s worst nightmare has become a reality. With his parents’ fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he’s forced to question what it means to be an American.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Racism
Panic attacks
Alcohol consumption
Deportation (theme)

In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson

In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson

Ava’s life is the kind other people envy: loving husband; great kids; beautiful house. Until the night that a violent home invasion plunges her world into chaos.

In the aftermath of the attack, Ava needs answers to two questions. Who has targeted her family? And why? Things aren’t adding up. She is starting to suspect that someone knows more than they are letting on. That everything she thought she knew about the people closest to her was a lie.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Murder
Gun violence
Home invasion

Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

17-year-old Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend, Alex, since forever.

After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust—her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organization called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they’ve found them.

In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realizes that she is not alone—there are others out there just like her—people with special powers—and her mother’s killer is one of them…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of a mother
Murder
Mugging recounted

Out of Control by Sarah Alderson

Out of Control by Sarah Alderson

When 17 year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she’s taken into police custody for her own protection. But when the police station is attacked and bullets start flying it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she’s a target.

Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun and outwit two killers who will stop at nothing to find them.

When you live on the edge, there’s a long way to fall.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Murder
Gun violence

The Sound by Sarah Alderson

The Sound by Sarah Alderson

When aspiring music journalist Ren Kingston takes a job nannying for a wealthy family on the exclusive island of Nantucket, playground for Boston’s elite, she’s hoping for a low-key summer reading books and blogging about bands. Boys are firmly off the agenda.

What she doesn’t count on is falling in with a bunch of party-loving private school kids who are hiding some dark secrets, falling (possibly) in love with the local bad boy, and falling out with a dangerous serial killer…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slut shaming
Murder

The Devil’s Blade by Mark Alder

The Devil’s Blade by Mark Alder

The story of Julie D’Aubigny is well known. Her tumultuous childhood, her powerful lovers, her celebrated voice. Connected to most of the nobility of 17th century Paris, feted for her performance, unwilling to live by the rules of her society, she took female lovers, fought duels with noblemen and fled from city to country and back again.

But now the real truth can be told. She also made a deal with the devil. He gave her no powers or help, but he kept her alive for only one reason. To take revenge…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Attempted rape
Statutory rape mentioned
Gore depiction

The Sailor in Polynesia by Liz Alden

The Sailor in Polynesia by Liz Alden

After fighting to keep her sailboat in a bitter divorce, Mia embraces her dream to sail the South Pacific alone. Until handsome stranger Jonas drops anchor beside her. Everything was fine; maybe my boat was a little more tired than I thought, and maybe it’s a touch lonely this far from my family. But that’s just part of sailing. Then, on a remote tropical atoll, another boat drops anchor next to me. It’s gorgeous, and so is the captain.

Jonas shows me everything that this sailing life could be—watching sunsets, snorkeling reefs, and enjoying camaraderie with his crew. A sizzling kiss sparks two blissful weeks of passion, but he’s heading to New Zealand, and my little sailboat has to stay in the gentle waters of Tahiti. There’s no way I’d give up my boat—she’s everything I’ve ever wanted. But can I give up Jonas?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Emotionally & verbally abusive relationship recounted

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

It is 1940 and Anna, 9, Edmund, 11, and William, 12, have just lost their grandmother. Unfortunately, she left no provision for their guardianship in her will. Her solicitor comes up with a preposterous plan: he will arrange for the children to join a group of schoolchildren who are being evacuated to a village in the country, where they will live with families for the duration of the war. He also hopes that whoever takes the children on might end up willing to adopt them and become their new family–providing, of course, that the children can agree on the choice.

Moving from one family to another, the children suffer the cruel trickery of foster brothers, the cold realities of outdoor toilets, and the hollowness of empty tummies… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child abuse & neglect
War themes
Graphic animal death
Bullying

Bottling It by AA Albright

Bottling It by A.A. Albright

Wanda Wayfair is a bit of a late starter. At almost twenty-one she still hasn’t received her magical powers, and she’s running out of time. But that doesn’t bother Wanda. Much. Not when she can spend all of her time in the human world and pretend that her coven doesn’t exist. But when Wanda takes a job at Berrys’ Bottlers, working with the handsome Will Berry and his unpleasant Aunt Alice, she soon realises that she’s a lot closer to the magical world than she thought.

All over Dublin, humans are murdering witches. When asked why, all they’ll say is, ‘I dunno why I done it.’ But Wanda thinks she does know why they’ve done it – and hopefully she’ll receive her power in time to help her coven discover the truth.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Murder
Kidnapping