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Love Lies Beneath by Ellen Hopkins

Love Lies Beneath by Ellen Hopkins

Tara is gorgeous, affluent, and forty. She lives in an impeccably restored Russian Hill mansion in San Francisco. Once a widow, twice divorced, she’s a woman with a past she prefers keeping to herself.

Enter Cavin Lattimore. He’s handsome, kind, charming, and the surgeon assigned to Tara following a ski accident in Lake Tahoe. In the weeks it takes her to recover, Cavin sweeps her off her feet and their relationship blossoms into something Tara had never imagined possible. But then she begins to notice some strange things: a van parked outside her home at odd times, a break-in, threatening text messages and emails. She also starts to notice cracks in Cavin’s seemingly perfect personality, like the suppressed rage his conniving teenage son brings out in him, and the discovery that Cavin hired a detective to investigate her immediately after they met… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Physical injuries
Death of a husband recounted
Home invasion

Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Ashley, an MFA student at San Diego State University grew up reading books and never dreamed she would become a military wife. One night she meets a handsome soldier named Cole. He doesn’t match the stereotype of the aggressive military man. He’s passionate and romantic. He even writes poetry. Their relationship evolves into a sexually charged love affair that goes on for five years and survives four deployments. Cole wants Ashley to marry him, but when she meets another man, a professor with similar pursuits and values, she begins to see what life might be like outside the shadow of war.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Military service & deployment

People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins

People Kil People by Ellen Hopkins

A gun is sold in the classifieds after killing a spouse, bought by a teenager for needed protection. But which was it? Each has the incentive to pick up a gun, to fire it. Was it Rand or Cami, married teenagers with a young son? Was it Silas or Ashlyn, members of a white supremacist youth organization? Daniel, who fears retaliation because of his race, who possessively clings to Grace, the love of his life? Or Noelle, who lost everything after a devastating accident, and has sunk quietly into depression?

One tense week brings all six people into close contact in a town wrought with political and personal tensions. Someone will fire. And someone will die. But who?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & white supremacy
Rape & attempted rape
Sexual assault
Depression
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Teen pregnancy
Murder
Knife violence & stabbing
Gun violence (theme)

Traffick by Ellen Hopkins

Traffick by Ellen Hopkins

In Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead.

And now, in Traffick, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Disownment
Sexual assault
Sex trafficking
Forced sex work
Substance addiction
Gambling addiction
Gun violence

The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

For as long as she can remember, it’s been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel’s mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now seventeen and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire.

Maya’s a teenager who’s run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she’s isolated with a baby on the way, and life’s getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Queermisia
Racism
Physical & verbal child abuse
Emotional child abuse & gaslighting
Child neglect & abandonment
Death of a father
Kidnapping

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Matthew Turner doesn’t have faith in anything.

Not in family—his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some “It Gets Better” psychobabble.

No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there’s no way Matt’s letting go of blame. He’s decided to “live large and go out with a huge bang,” and whatever happens happens. But when a horrific event plunges Matt into a dark, silent place, he hears a rumble … a rumble that wakes him up, calling everything he’s ever disbelieved into question.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
Recreational drug use
Suicide
Death of a brother
Explosion
Hanging
Bullying

Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Holly: Filled with regret for being a stay-at-home mom, she sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. Will it bring the fulfillment she is searching for? Andrea: A single mom and avowed celibate, she watches her friend Holly’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for – a committed relationship with a decent guy. So what if Andrea picks up Holly’s castaway husband? Marissa: She has more than her fair share of challenges – a gay, rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts.

As one woman’s marriage unravels, another’s rekindles. As one woman’s family comes apart at the seams, another’s reconfigures into something bigger and better.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Attempted suicide
Alcohol consumption
Drug abuse
Teen pregnancy
Terminal illness

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

Pattyn Von Stratten’s father is dead, and Pattyn is on the run. After far too many years of abuse at the hands of her father, and after the tragic loss of her beloved Ethan and their unborn child, Pattyn is desperate for peace. Only her sister Jackie knows what happened that fatal night, but she is stuck at home with their mother, who clings to normalcy by allowing the truth to be covered up by their domineering community leaders. Her father might be finally gone, but without Pattyn, Jackie is desperately isolated.

Alone and in disguise, Pattyn starts a new life as a migrant worker on a California ranch. But is it even possible to rebuild a life when everything you’ve known has burned to ash and lies seem far safer than the truth?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Homomisia & homomisic slurs
Lesbomisia & lesbomisic slurs
Racism
Misogyny
Hate crimes discussed
Victim blaming
Slut shaming
Rape & attempted rape
Domestic abuse
Child abuse
Suicidal ideation
Pregnancy loss
Parent with alcoholism recounted
Alcohol consumption
Death of a father
Death of a boyfriend
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Explosions & bombings
Animal death
Bullying

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?

Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language (r slur)
Homomisia, internalised homomisia & homomisic slurs
Fatmisia & body shaming
Slut shaming
Rape
Domestic abuse recounted
Child abuse recounted
Attempted child sexual assault recounted
Depression
Attempted suicide
Suicidal ideation
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug abuse
AIDS & HIV
Bullying

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there.

Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Outing
Physical child abuse
Cheating
Teacher-student relationship mentioned
Date rape
Revenge pornography
Suicide
Parent with alcoholism
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Hospitalisation
Knife violence & stabbing