rachel @ typed truths

The Merciless by Danielle Vega

The Merciless by Danielle Vega

Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls unless she wants to be next. . . .

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Graphic blood & gore depiction
Torture

Diary of a Haunting by M. Verano

Diary of a Haunting by M. Verano

When Paige moves from LA to Idaho with her mom and little brother after her parents’ high-profile divorce, she expects to completely hate her new life, and the small town doesn’t disappoint. Worse yet, the drafty old mansion they’ve rented is infested with flies, spiders, and other pests Paige doesn’t want to think about.

She chalks it up to her rural surroundings, but it’s harder to ignore the strange things happening around the house, from one can of ravioli becoming a dozen, to unreadable words appearing in the walls. Soon Paige’s little brother begins roaming the house at all hours of the night, and there’s something not right about the downstairs neighbour, who knows a lot more than he’s letting on… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating recounted
Parental divorce recounted
Blood depiction
Murder
Fire

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance—so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who’s grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Amputation
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a family member
Car accident

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die by David Nyoul Vincent

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die by David Nyoul Vincent with Carol Nader

David Nyuol Vincent was a little boy when he fled southern Sudan with his father, as war raged in their country. He left behind his distraught mother and sisters, his village, and his childhood and he would never return.

For months David and his father walked across southern Sudan, barefoot, desperately searching for safety, food, and water. They survived the perilous Sahara Desert crossing into Ethiopia only to be separated and for David to be trained as a child soldier and then to survive the next 17 years of his life alone in refugee camps. Life in the camps was a relentless struggle against starvation, air bombings, and people determined to kill him and his people.

In 2004 David was offered a Humanitarian Visa as one of the Lost Boys and was resettled to Australia. Traumatized by what he had seen and endured, he went about the slow and painful process of making a new life for himself – a life away from hunger, away from guns, away from death. A life where David is determined to improve the plight of his people both in Australia and back in the Sudan.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Trauma (theme)
Starvation & famine
Bombings
War themes, including refugee experiences

99 Lies by Rachel Vincent

99 Lies by Rachel Vincent

Getting kidnapped over spring break was definitely memorable. But now that the surviving hostages are home, they want life to feel normal again: high school, dating, million-dollar galas.

But there’s no escaping the spotlight–or the truth about the ways they betrayed each other in the jungle. And this time, the real threat isn’t kidnappers–it’s what the “friends” might do to each other.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Kidnapping recounted
Trauma (theme)

100 Hours by Rachel Vincent

100 Hours by Rachel Vincent

Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis’s entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami’s predictable social scene with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends. While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty—like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens. But paradise has its price. Dragged from their tents under the cover of dark, Genesis, Maddie, and their friends are kidnapped and held for ransom deep inside the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Slut-shaming
Fatphobia & body-shaming
Statutory sexual assault
Abusive relationship
Substance addiction recovery
Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
Alcohol consumption
Blood & injury depiction including emesis & needles
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a parent, brother & cousin
Murder
Gun violence
Kidnapping & hostage situation
Explosions
Psychological torture

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital.

When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Suicide (on-page)

The Outrage by William Hussey

The Outrage by William Hussey

Welcome to England, where the Protectorate enforces the Public Good. Here, there are rules for everything – what to eat, what to wear, what to do, what to say, what to read, what to think, who to obey, who to hate, who to love. Your safety is assured, so long as you follow the rules.

Gabriel is a natural born rule-breaker. And his biggest crime of all? Being gay.

Gabriel knows his sexuality must be kept secret from all but his closest friends, not only to protect himself, but to protect his boyfriend. Because Eric isn’t just the boy who has stolen Gabriel’s heart. He’s the son of the chief inspector at Degenerate Investigations - the man who poses the single biggest threat to Gabriel’s life.

And the Protectorate are experts at exposing secrets.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Racism
Homomisia & homomisic language
Self-harm
Suicide mentioned

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, ambitious wizard, known only as the Dragon, to keep the wood’s powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman must be handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as being lost to the wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows – everyone knows – that the Dragon will take beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, her dearest friend in the world. There is no way to save her. But no one can predict how or why the Dragon chooses a girl and when he comes, it is not Kasia he will take with him…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Attempted rape (on-page, detailed)
Cheating recounted
Adult-minor relationship*
Alcohol consumption
Pregnancy mentioned
Body horror
Minor physical injuries (burns)
Death of a brother
Death of a mother & father mentioned
Murder
Knife violence
Kidnapping
Fire
War themes & military violence
Graphic animal death
Animal attack

*Note: The main romance is between a seventeen-year-old girl and an immortal 100-(plus)-year-old man.

Tilly and the Map of Stories by Anna James

Tilly & the Map of Stories by Anna James

Strange things are happening. A man comes into Pages Co looking for a book… then suddenly can’t remember it. Tilly and her family feel like the world is changing – but can’t quite put their finger on why.

Meanwhile, the Underwoods are expanding their control over bookwandering – and they still have their sights set on Tilly. Leaving the safety of the bookshop, Tilly heads to America to find the legendary Archivists and save bookwandering…

… or at least, that’s the plan. Wandering in layers of story, Tilly and her friend Oskar come up against dangers they could never have expected, team up with an unexpectedly familiar face, and ultimately find themselves taking on the biggest threat to stories there has ever been – with only their courage and ingenuity to help them. As well as some of their dearest fictional friends…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Alcohol consumption
Kidnapping
Fire