rachel @ typed truths

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight—she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.

She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po.

She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace—or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape mentioned
Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
Sexual harassment
Child abuse
Coerced suicide mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Nonconsensual drugging
Blood & physical injury depiction
Death of a mother
Murder
Knife violence
Near-death experience from hypothermia
Animal attack
Animal abuse

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Eight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue, and her country, were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace.

But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck’s death, believe in a forward-thinking plan: to pardon all of those who committed terrible acts during Leck’s reign; and to forget every dark event that ever happened. Monsea’s past has become shrouded in mystery, and it’s only when Bitterblue begins sneaking out of her castle – curious, disguised and alone – to walk the streets of her own city, that she begins to realise the truth. Her kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year long spell of a madman, and now their only chance to move forward is to revisit the past.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
Child abuse
Domestic abuse
Suicide & suicidal ideation
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Physical injuries
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a parent
Torture

The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden by Jessica Sorensen

The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorenson

For Kayden, suffering in silence was the only way to survive. If he was lucky, he could keep his head down, do as he was told, and make it through the day. But one night it seemed like his luck-and his life-might finally end… until an angel named Callie appeared just in time to rescue him.

Callie has never believed in luck. Not since her twelfth birthday when everything was taken from her. After the worst was over, she locked up her feelings and vowed never to tell anyone what happened. Now, six years later, she continues to struggle with the painful secret that threatens to consume her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slut shaming
Paedophilia
Rape
Child abuse
Self harm

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slavery
Sexual assault
Rape mentioned
Emotional abuse & gaslighting
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Torture
Genocide & mass murder

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Shay Miller wants to find love, but it eludes her. She wants to be fulfilled, but her job is a dead end. She wants to belong, but her life is increasingly lonely.

Until Shay meets the Moore sisters. Cassandra and Jane live a life of glamorous perfection, and always get what they desire. When they invite Shay into their circle, everything seems to get better. Shay would die for them to like her. She may have to.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Fatmisia & body shaming
Rape (on-page)
Trauma & panic attacks
Graphic suicide by train (on-page)
Suicide (theme)
Alcohol consumption
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend
Death of a sister
Death of a father recounted
Strangulation
Stalking

*Note: A character is described as having ‘almond-shaped eyes’.

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Seeking women ages 18 – 32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed.

When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking…and what she’s hiding. As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields’ manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexual assault
Domestic abuse
Cheating
Suicide
Stalking

Dearly by Margaret Atwood

Dearly by Margaret Atwood

By turns moving, playful and wise, the poems gathered in Dearly are about absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, but also about gifts and renewals. They explore bodies and minds in transition, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. Werewolves, sirens and dreams make their appearance, as do various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Murder

The Penelopiad of Margaret Atwood

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

In Homer’s account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumors, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home, he kills her suitors and—curiously—twelve of her maids.

In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged maids,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child marriage
Rape & sexual assault
Murder

The Heart Goes Last of Margaret Atwood

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car. They desperately need to turn their situation around, and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer. Everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in… for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their “civilian” homes.

At first, this doesn’t seem like too much of a sacrifice to make but when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events puts Stan’s life in danger.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Bestiality
Imprisonment
Homelessness

The Possession of Mr Cave of Matt Haig

The Possession of Mr Cave by Matt Haig

Terence Cave, intellectual, music-lover and owner of Cave Antiques, has experienced more than his share of tragedies. His mother’s suicide and his young wife’s death at the hands of burglars left him to bring up his young twins alone. And now one of them has died in a grotesque accident as a result of bullying.

Bryony, the remaining twin, has always been the family’s great hope: a golden teenager, in love with her cello and her pony, clever, sweet and eager to please. Now that she is all Terence has left, he realises that his one duty in life is to keep her safe from the world’s malign forces, whatever that may take. As he starts to follow his grieving daughter’s movements, and enforces a draconian set of rules purely for her own safety, the voices in his head convince him to protect her innocence at any cost.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Suicide
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a wife
Death of a mother